Spotlight On... Isabella Strange
Ahead of releasing their debut EP, and a headline show at Edinburgh's Voodoo Rooms, we catch up with playful punks Isabella Strange
It’s always exciting when a punchy debut lands in our inbox, and the B-52s-esque surf-punk vibes of Sally’s Day, the opening track on Slick Git, piqued our interest in Isabella Strange from the off. It’s punchy, abrasive, delightfully scrappy around the edges, and oozing with attitude, much like the rest of the EP.
With Slick Git set for release this Saturday (1 Feb), and with the four-piece readying themselves for a launch show that evening at Edinburgh’s Voodoo Rooms with Bikini Body and Cowboy Hunters on support, we catch up with Louis Muller-Stuart (drums), Finlay Robson (vocals, guitar), Aedan "Willy" Wilson (bass) and Kira Wolfe-Murray (vocals, guitar) to find out more.
How did you meet and what was it like forming and starting a band during lockdown?
Wilson: Louis and I grew up together in the Borders and played in various projects with each other. Through his childhood friendship with Kira, we joined her and Finlay’s band Hip Priest. Once lockdown hit and that fell apart we recouped and created Isabella Strange.
Wolfe-Murray: Honestly, forming in lockdown was really great for us. We had so much time to focus on the kind of music we wanted to make. We used to make these Soundtrap tunes from our rooms. It was weird and sometimes didn’t really work but it was so fun, we were collaborating and it felt productive. When social distancing got lifted, we started seeing each other and playing again. It was kind of a game-changer. We weren’t operating through our laptop speakers, but through amps, and real drums again, that was exciting.
We had so much time to jam and make stuff because everything was still kind of paused at that point. We were lucky enough to get access to an office in Summerhall’s Tech Cube – not your average practice space but it was free – and we rinsed that until we were finally asked to leave (there was actual work to be done in that building that couldn’t withstand the blaring wrath of our sound, fair play).
Where does the name Isabella Strange come from?
Wolfe-Murray: Isabella Strange is a real lady – she’s an ancestor of mine from the 1700s. She was allegedly a Jacobite’s wife and a Jacobite herself. The first time I heard her name I thought it was so striking. I couldn’t imagine an Isabella Strange in the 18th century – must have been a badass. Thing is, there’s not much about her written down, which kind of leaves a lot to the imagination. I thought that was quite fun. To me it was like breathing some life into her name again. Now Isabella Strange is a four-piece punk band with raw jams and feminist undertones. Hope my gal approves the message.
Who/what inspires your overall sound in the band?
Muller-Stuart: One thing I’ve always noticed about our band is that it's far more influenced by American scenes and genres than music going on in the UK. When we played, our influences felt more defined by the underground New York culture that produced artists like Patti Smith. We were attracted as teens to this more theatrical and poetic style, I also think that's something to do with growing up in Edinburgh. We also were really drawn to the riot grrrl, no-wave and post-punk scenes, especially bands like Sonic Youth. Another core influence that birthed the band's sound is PJ Harvey. She’s like this standalone, godly figure, especially to me and Kira, and after six years she’s still this infinite resource for getting us juiced up to play.
Myself and Willy started out playing in very different bands to Kira and Finlay. We listened to a lot of Aussie psych-rock, but both landed on an obsession for garage-punk bands like Thee Oh Sees. I think it's our shared love for that band that drives the rhythm section. From this we all started delving into punk, garage and hardcore bands like Prison Affair and Pisse. These bands kind of showed us how to use aggression in music, we leaned more into using noise, fast tempos and blunt song structures.
Once we got into the swing of writing tunes after COVID, the influences that came into the room were more contemporary and local. Dry Cleaning is probably our biggest UK influence alongside PJ Harvey. For me, that band’s ability to take a really retro punk sound, and rework it into these very hypnotic and progressive tunes was a massive eye-opener. Dry Cleaning kind of connected the dots for us between punk and loads of other new sub-genres/styles of playing.
Wilson: Finlay and I have recently been feeding off the alt-rock/shoegaze/mid-west emo scene going on in America (Wednesday, Feeble Little Horse, Lifeguard, etc.) There’s a lot of raw energy and emotion to the lyrics and the instrumentals in that music that slots in really well with our sound. We’re also huge Bikini Body fans. Some bands just show up and play but those guys perform. Their shows are always an experience – it’s nice to have some real inspiration so close to home.
Robson: Any band with Horse in their name – Horsegirl, Horse Jumper of Love, Feeble Little Horse, etc.
You’re about to release your debut EP, Slick Git – what are some of the important themes explored across the record? And why were they important for you to express in your music?
Wolfe-Murray: Slick Git makes reference to some personal experiences and also just general speculations about things. I suppose for me, Slick Git is kind of about feeling hard done by. By men, by others, by yourself. For some reason gender is a key theme within our music that we keep coming back to. A feeling turns into a note, into a rhyme and then brought into the studio. That’s how it works. It’s ruthless and shocking out there but in these moments, we learn so much.
Womanhood, from where I’m sitting, is complicated and brutal but that’s what makes it beautiful and profound. It's something to look at and explore. I don’t think it's black and white. I want to say plainly that men are not the villains of life, and I don’t think that is necessarily the principal theme of the EP. Nor do I feel like a misunderstood cripple. I just really enjoyed playing with those themes, both light-heartedly and more earnestly.
Unfinished Business is so unserious and yet I think is just so cathartic. The lyrics are so simple but it’s the diss track of my dreams to be honest. I love it because it’s also really fun to play. A huge inspiration for us has always been the riot grrrl movement. Thats why I wanted to play in a band in the first place. It was honestly the supreme way of venting out my frustrations as a ripe 17-year-old. PJ Harvey, Fiona Apple and Kathleen Hanna were such powerful figures who also explored difficult themes relating to the female experience. I liked their narratives and the way they approached their music: tenderly and ferocious at the same time. I find myself trying to reach that balance in our music/lyrics. I love Amyl and the Sniffers for how feral they are too. That’s something I think we all are trying to tap into as a band.
Robson: When writing Slick Git (the song) I was inspired by this poet, John Berryman; he wrote kind of nervous and surreal confessional poems in his book, The Dream Songs, and I was really into them at the time. That became the focus of the lyrics, I think, a general sort of uneasiness and apprehension. I like that I sound a bit bored when I’m singing it too because it’s a contrast to Kira’s style, which is cool.
Towards the end of EP closer Unfinished Business, you change things up, singing a couple of lines in French, which sounds slick, and is super impactful. What’s the relevance of this to the band, and can we expect more bilingual lyricism in the future?
Wolfe-Murray: Yes, I’d like to think so! I love singing in different languages. I was heavily inspired by CSS, a Brazilian band that sings in English and Portuguese. There's this one song, Music is My Hot Hot Sex, that has this punchy Portuguese verse that comes in at the end – I wanted to do something like that. It was so fun singing in French, I loved playing with sound and rhyme in a language I don’t know very well. It’s a great way of reimagining the song and its meaning. Unfinished Business is light-hearted but also about feeling misunderstood so it felt quite fitting to change it up a little.
Image: Isabella Strange by Aidan Duckworth
You’re launching the EP with a show at Voodoo Rooms this weekend. What can people expect on the night?
Wilson: Lots of energy. The lineup is stacked with some of the best punk in Edinburgh – maybe Scotland? Cowboy Hunters and Bikini Body both have their own distinct flavour and I’m super excited to see how that blends on the night. The Ballroom is such a cool space as well, it’s going to be a privilege to celebrate our launch there. It’s been a long road for us to get here and we want to relish that success with everyone who shows up. We’ve also got some real treats lined up, but I don’t want to spoil the surprise – you’ll just have to be there.
Robson: Utter carnage.
What does the rest of the year look like for Isabella Strange?
Wolfe-Murray: For me, the whole process of releasing the EP and everything surrounding it has been such a great learning experience – not just about how to do it but also how we want to be perceived. That is going to influence the way we create and release music in the future. We want to keep making things we’re proud of – this was a big first step for us to put ourselves out there. We want to exist and do that for longer. Before, we were kinda just the blind leading the blind so it’s nice to get a bit more experience. More than anything though, we wanna keep having fun.
Muller-Stuart: Releasing this EP was like being karate chopped in the puss with a thousand new challenges and experiences. For the last four years we’ve essentially just been focused on gigs and writing new songs, but recording last year and setting a release date changed a lot for us. I think we’ve all developed a lot of confidence, and are really keen to continue being productive with our creativity. On the CD and cassette versions of Slick Git we included a few audio sketches, soundscapes and skits. We’ve talked about how much we want to continue using that medium as part of what we put out.
We also want to release more music this year, especially now we have some experience under our belts. Recording at Green Door studio in Glasgow with Chris McCrory was unreal, he’s such a skilled producer both technically and just in terms of supporting and inspiring the band. So we definitely want to continue that relationship for future releases. We each have our own lists of local bands we want to play with, and we hope to become a household name for the local scenekidz and weirdos.
Slick Git is released on 1 Feb; Isabella Strange play Voodoo Rooms, Edinburgh, 1 Feb
Follow Isabella Strange on Instagram @isabellastrange