The outfit showcase their fiercely creative sound and pay homage to powerful, trailblazing women on their new EP
Having spent the last few months drip feeding us with captivating and unique releases from their brand new EP Seven Sisters, fiercely distinctive and creative London-based outfit Wednesday’s Child have finally released the next seven track release, with each representing a different woman, channelling the feminine power and strength that they possessed to craft an EP that feels wildly diverse and ambitious throughout.
The EP opens with ‘Billie’, an ode to Billie Holiday that serves as something of an introduction to the offering. The track is intense and wonderfully weird throughout, building a palpable sense of atmospheric tension that feels like a warning of what is to come.
The track blends seamlessly into ‘Theda’, a track that embodies the off-kilter appeal of vampiric silent film actress Theda Bara. The melodic and energetic post-punk feel of the sound injects the EP with an immediate sense of fun and charm to offset the unsettling, witchy vibes. If there is one thing about Wednesday’s Child on this release, it is that they throw themselves headfirst into any stylistic shift and change of tone, and this track is absolutely stacked full of personality and infectiously gleeful appeal that provides a stark contrast to its underlying darkness.
Portuguese-British visual artist Dame Paula Rego is honoured next on ‘Paula’, a track that melds swirling melodies with moments of spoken, and even whispered calm, while still maintaining the sense of uniquely potent unrest and frantic energy that characterises their sound. Each track on the EP has such a distinctive flavour and vibe that they feel unmistakable, with this manic sense of personality and vibrancy serving as the thread that ties them together.
At times on ‘Julia’, the outfit threaten to embrace a more melodic and conventional side of their sound, with its affable guitars and engrossing melodies making for one of the most accessible releases on the EP. Of course, the track wouldn’t feel like Wednesday’s Child without some of the intricacies and left-field moments and unconventional structures that they employ, with the track often threatening to descend into chaos while never quite completely veering off into that territory.
Alice in Wonderland is explored on ‘Alice’, and the track has exactly the kind of frantic and exploratory feel that you would expect from a release based around such an already creative subject. It is at their most adventurous and weird that Wednesday’s Child shine, and this track is impossible to predict throughout, taking unexpected twists and turns throughout its duration.
Ronnie Spector of The Ronettes is subject of the next track, with its nostalgic lushness and emotive vocals making for the most endearingly relatable and captivating release on the EP, finding a way to resonate and hold some genuinely moving moments among the unpredictability and creativity. The feelings of losing yourself and longing for what could have been are universal, making for a track that stays with you for long after your listen.
The goddess of dance and chorus feels like an appropriate place for the EP to land as it reaches its conclusion, with ‘Terpsichore’ a frenetic and restless release that gives the outfit’s unique brand of weirdness a dose of energetic flair and restlessness. The track’s winding structure and sense of fun again threatens to descend into complete chaos at any given moment, and the sheer overwhelming nature of the breadth of ideas here characterises the scope and guile of the EP perfectly.
To say that Seven Sisters is a lot to take in is something of an understatement, the tracks have a complete disregard for conventional structure or contemporary appeal and instead just allow themselves to segment off into creative, adventurous journeys that makes them feel almost like living things, exploring and searching throughout their duration. The EP is a fitting piece of work to honour the feminine divine, an ode to the unabashed creativity and trailblazing nature of its subjects that was made with tonnes of heart, love and an unapologetic flair for the unconventional. The sheer ambition of the EP alone is to be lauded, but the real gem lies in the soul of the release, and the very human and powerful rawness to rewrite and take ownership of our stories, inspired by these women to be creative, and bold, and uncompromising.
