Trailer Trash Tracys

UK trio Trailer Trash Tracys have three songs to their name, and they're touring with it-kids the xx. They have a sloppy Jesus and Mary Chain feel; errant cave guitar and a lotta tape hiss that for once sounds unintentional. Their Facebook page calls it "minimal industrial surf," whatever. They're far dirtier than their tourmates, but also fuller, warmer, and easier to connect the melodic dots. And their second single puts them in the air. "Candy Girl", heard earlier in a demo version and fleshed out slightly for a new single, is the next best thing to a New Edition cover. It has thick snare whips and a swirling melodic figure that if my ears aren't deceiving me is chipped from Jimmy Eat World's "Lucky Denver Mint", slowed to a crawl and for all intents and purposes chopped 'n' screwed while singer Suzanne Aztoria warbles around herself like one-woman Electr-O-Pura cover band. Sure, Yo La Tengo, 1980s signifiers, millennial emo... may not be the most convincing sell of an up-and-coming band. But there's a spark of something here. Catch them in their awkward stage.

- Dan Weiss

I was pretty surprised when I learned that Trailer Trash Tracys are from London. Even if it weren't for the fact that the moniker sounds like one of a band opening for Southern Culture on the Skids, the Tracys do that hollow-eyed, sun-bleached lo-fi thing as good as (if not better than) some of their Yankee peers. And while a cold listen of "Strangling Good Guys" (from the new No Pain In Pop compilation) might render their Englishness irrelevant, it's a defining detail that accomplishes something bold in a micro-niche that may prove itself stale in the very near future.

For as frothy and lucid as "Good Guys" is, it surges on an oceanic wash of foamy static that makes the Tracys' underlying melancholic persuasions all the more rewarding. Braced by Jimmy-Lee's dizzying guitar loop, Susanne Aztoria's mercurial, wearied vocal performance somehow manages to sound divine and nonchalant, devoid of the typical boredom and irony other lo-fi girls hang their coats on. There's no Beach Boys fetish, no snark-- just a fondness for the erstwhile days of unhealthy Stone Roses obsessions. Like Mazzy Star funneled through a tin-can phone, the Tracys have captured something both amorous and nostalgic, yet very grounded in the here and now. - Zach Kelly

Observer Review
Lusciously moody and melodic and
steeped in shoe-gazing nostalgia
Trailer Trash Tracys Candy Girl
Free stream, tinyurl.com/nikhyy

Guardian.co.uk: New Band of the day
The background: Edwyn Collins of Orange Juice must have been feeling particularly inspired on that bright spring afternoon (it might have been a dull winter morning but we're being poetic) back in the early 80s when he decided on a name for the band he had just formed with his two young Scottish female friends: Strawberry Switchblade. Because by calling them that, he didn't just alight upon an evocative moniker with its intimations of deliciousness and danger, he inadvertently came up with something really important: he made sense of and gave formal shape to a sound that had been there or thereabouts (particularly via the Velvets, the Banshees and the Cocteau Twins) for many years and turned it into a new rock aesthetic. Basically, that whole tranche of bands, from My Bloody Valentine to the 80s and 90s shoegazers to today's Brooklyn cutie revivalists, were born on that fateful day, as was the notion of fusing polar opposites: pop and rock, the incendiary and the sugary, the sweet and the savage. Nice one, Edwyn.

Trailer Trash Tracys aren't the first band to try and squeeze together the innocent sound of girl-group pop and the reverb and drones of something more challenging, even nasty. A contrast between darkness and light, dissonance and melody, the vicious and the sublime, the Shangri La's meet the Stooges or Ronettes meet Ramones? We've heard that one before; many times, in fact. But they do it as well as any that we've heard of late. TTT are not a band as such, they're a duo – Aztoria (dreamy sighs) and Lee (scything guitar), with a little help from James (the tinny, tiny sound of drums being thumped in a galaxy, or a bedroom, far, far away). We're not sure who is responsible for the woozy atmospherics and the echoey production, but the ghosts of Kevin Shields and Joe Meek are there or thereabouts, although we would like to take this opportunity to emphasise that Kevin is very much alive. He's just lazy.

TTT haven't exactly been idle since they formed a few months ago. While holding down regular day jobs in customer relations (her) and freelance graphic design (him), they've been gigging furiously with the likes of the Pains of Being Pure at Heart, White Lies and the XX, and recording their debut double A-side single Candy Girl/You Wish You Were Red for the ultra-cool and indie-chic No Pain In Pop label, the home of the acclaimed Nite Jewel and New Band of the Day favourites Banjo Or Freakout. Now they'd like to hear their spectral guitar pop being sung by superstars. "I'd like to think that even Britney Spears could cover one of our songs and you'd still be able to see its melody shining through," they say, and somewhere Edwyn Collins is smiling.

The buzz: "Ghostly transmissions from another metaphysical plane, all ethereal angel sighs, which seem to settle on the music like a fog at dusk."

The truth: While we wait (and wait, and wait) for Kevin Shields to deliver new MBV material, or even revamped old MBV material, TTT will do nicely as junior stand-ins.

Most likely to: Be cute and cutting.

Least likely to: Wear ribbons and polka-dot dresses. Especially Lee.

What to buy: Candy Girl/You Wish You Were Red is released on seven-inch vinyl through No Pain In Pop on 14 September.

File next to: Vivian Girls, Crystal Stilts, the Pains of Being Pure at Heart,

Links: myspace.com/trailertrashtracys - Paul Lester

“Opposites Attract” by Paula Abdul may have been about her ill-advised, zoophilic flirtation with a denim-clad cartoon cat, but the song’s sentiment, that ying plus yang equals awesome, remains unsullied. Take Trailer Trash Tracys. Like a tidal wave and an ice sculpture, Jimmy-Lee’s reverb bombast and Susanne Aztoria’s fragile coos shouldn’t get along, but the combination ends up both potent and poignant. Here is the demo of their epic new Spector-goes-shoegaze single, “Candy Girl”. I spoke to them about Twin Peaks and New Edition and stadium rock.



Download: Trailer Trash Tracys, “Candy Girl (demo)”


I think your name is great, but a lot of people are down on it.
Jimmy-Lee: Yeah… I use to work at the Bull & Gate [a rock venue is north London] and the coolest bands had trashy names like Anal Beard, Switchblade Sadie, Death Club 7… Got to smile, aint ya? The name is actually from a Soviet all girl stripper group in the Stalin period. Stalin had abolished the arts, religion, general free thinking, except he would employ these young girls as strippers, who were, in the former Russia, classically trained ballet dancers. Although banned from performing their classical dances, they were forced to perform their stripteases to the Stalin and the Politburo. However, they did their strip tease in the style of their old ballet dance routines. They crept in their art. They were called something like “trekov teh Tractevs”. A Russian friend had translated that to me as “peasant girl Tracev”(Tracev is like the name “Jones” in Russia). I was immediately inspired. Haven’t polished the strip act just yet though.

Susanne Aztoria: Let’s face it, most band names are pretty bad. A lot of people think we are some trashy girl group. I really like that our band name does not reflect the music we do at all.

Would you encourage people (me) who call you Triple-T or T3?
Susanne Aztoria: No. How did you manage to come up with names that are worse than the one we have?

Jimmy-Lee: T3? Sounds like the Terminator trilogy. Triple-T? Sounds like a Techno MC.

I’ve read vague allusions to things not working out with a former band, what’s the deal with that?
Susanne Aztoria: That band was very much manufactured by the songwriter/guitarist back then (Jimmy was bassist then). He was trying to make this indie band when it almost could have been a band from Pop Idol. But if it wasn’t for that band me and Jimmy would not have met and this band would not have existed.

Jimmy-Lee: Swedish singer, dark-haired, dark-skinned axe man… You dont recognise us? Yep, we are Roxette. I’m still hoping we can have a hit like the old days.

Do you know the band New Edition; it was the band Bobby Brown was in as a young man. Pre-crack. They had a song called Candy Girl. It’s quite different to yours.
Susanne Aztoria: How weird, we just watched their video this morning. It’s a great song and they really had the moves! Candy Girl was actually just the working title of that song. I persistently tried to convince Jimmy that we had to change it but that never happened as he loved it.

Jimmy-Lee: Candy Girl is about my older sister. She’s dead now, hence the lyrics “heart beat stops.”

Oh, I’m sorry. Musically it reminds me of the Twin Peaks theme and your name also reminds me of that show. Actually, I think you remind me more of the seedy novelisation, The Secret Diary Of Laura Palmer.
Susanne Aztoria: I’m a fan of David Lynch. He reflects the dark side of America very well. Also music is an important part of his work, it always gives you a certain feeling. I want our music to make people feel something, whatever that might be.

Jimmy-Lee: I think of our music more like a John Cassavetes film than Lynch. But I recently watched Twin Peaks, and there is a hint of 80s cheese in there. I can do the reverse vocal, dance midget thing to a tee. It’s my only impression; “Lawwuuura Pwalmerr”. If I would put those two in a band I would put Lynch as lead guitarist and John Cassavetes as lead singer.

You’ve spoken about the importance of great song writing and making records that are universal. Do you want to be a stadium band? T3 play the 02?
Jimmy-Lee: You decided on T3 already?! Sneaky so and so. T3 playing the 02, with the XX,Mc5,M83,XTC,B-52s,5678s,the YYYs not U2, but UB40 headlining. That would be ideal! I guess world domination isn’t really what we are after. If we started to get crowds to fill a stadium then there is something wrong with the music. It’s that simple. I would never forgive myself. Music has to challenge. Pop music can challenge, without wearing cone bras. We just have a soft spot for melody. You know, non-cheesy pop songs are the hardest things to write. Don’t be fooled by some Shoreditch band producing ‘interesting’ rhythms, and sonics from the latest electronic Roland R2D2, then calling it a “tune” with no song. It’s tiresome technical wankerage. Cut paste, cut paste on Cubase…

Susanne Aztoria: I have no intention to play any big venues like the O2. I went to see Prince there and he was just this little dot. If it wasn’t for the TV screens it could have been anyone so I might as well have watched it at home with surround sound.We work hard and are complete perfectionists most of the time. As I work as well there is not a lot of time left over to do other things, but it is all worth it. Nothing beats writing a real good song. We have this dream of doing a great album. Also it would be great to be able to do music full time even if it’s only for a year or so.

Trailer Trash Tracy’s debut single “Candy Girl”/”Wish You Were Red” is out soon on No Pain In Pop. - Scott Wright

"Trailer Trash Tracys' amazing new debut single-of-the-year contender.. the overwhelmingly gorgeous'50s-pop-meets-'80s-nostalgia of "Candy Girl," and the moving, lo-fi shoegaze in the surf ballad "You Wish You Were Red"."
- Chris Cantalini

What's hot on our playlist. Trailer Trash Tracys Candy Girl
The up and coming London trio's debut single is a brilliant slice of woozy guitars, hazy vocals and noise pop. - The Barometer