please enjoy: "(I Am Not Your) Dude" by Gender Warfare
Do you know about Gender Warfare??? Ohhhh you need to know about Gender Warfare. I interviewed the London-based band for The Alternative earlier this year about their "queercore hardcore girlcore" music; in March they released Bridging Prescription, a glitchy, breakbeat-littered, distortion-blasted collection of "B sides, pre sides, who knows"; now they have a new song out called "(I Am Not Your) Dude" and it riiiiiiiiiiips.
Bandcamp New & Notable Apr 18, 2023
During the song's breakdown, guitarist/bassist Mia Thunderska affects an arch, impassive attitude toward getting misgendered ("If you have to call me darling, don't correct yourself / You got it right the first time") but on the choruses, vocalist Zoe Oxymoron is undeniably and righteously pissed off, hollering "I am not your man / I am not your dude / I am not your bro, bro" over a relentless barrage of drums before a cybergrind-y breakdown takes over. It's a full fuckin' send: sarcastic rage barely contained within the genre parameters of hardcore.
When I had asked the band about their identification with 'ravecore' music, Mia Thunderska responded, "I thought, you know what would be really fun? Starting a hardcore band but not really knowing what we meant by 'hardcore.' Because I feel like we provide a bit of the hardcore punk, a bit of the ol' garage, a bit of jungle...a bit of everything, really." Drummer Maeve Westall followed up: "The main thing for me is getting that aspect of the joy of being able to completely let go. And then combining that with the tactility of hardcore punk makes for a real powerful explosion." That kind of sonic lawlessness and catharsis is absolutely what we all need right now. And as the band's Bandcamp page states plainly, "Hardcore is Dance Music." Hell yeah it is.
Bonus: the glitchy "(I Am Not Your) Dude" video, directed by Heather Estradiol, is also super sick.
