Niklas' blog

Charlotte Hatherley, very promising solo artist since she left Ash in February this year, is working on her own music-label and finishing her new album for release early next year.

So, what about her? To begin with, she used to play guitar in Ash. I really like that band. If you haven’t heard their “1977″ you should, not only because the title means a) all the members of the band were born in that year and b) they’re obsessed with Star Wars and the first film dropped that year – but really because their power-pop rocked the world with basically all the tracks on that album, plus playing the last track in its entirety actually made my father vomit, and I’m not joking. Yep, it’s that good. But back to Charlotte.

I first heard her “giddy bubblegum punk” in the shape of “Kim Wilde”, a free download from her site. Hurrah! That’s the spirit, as one shalt never cater to the indie kids by attempting to sell them something at the start; first you give them the drugs, and when they’re on your drugs, you sell them the whole palaver, moahaha! Where was I? Oh yes, my nefarious Emperor-routine. Back to Charlotte.

Her tracks caught me by being addictive and hard to play on the guitar. Bastard child! But did the “Pet Sounds” routine pay off? Her tracks reminded me of Pixies, Silver Sun and, you’d better believe it, Ash. Her debut album is personal, contains some brilliant hooks plus very weird and working guitaristry, so I think I’ve listened to it some 20 times, which is very good by my standards. Like deleting an album off your audio-player, thinking “oh, I’m quite finished with that, I think”, and putting it back a few weeks later to wonder what the hell you were doing deleting it in the first place.

Get a load off her new single, “Behave”, off her myspace-site. Yeah, it’s clearly different from her previous material, but on the other hand, change is good, right? Some older singles are there a well. Of course, I’m a bit fraidy as her official homepage says this album’s going to be “more ethereal, thoughtful”. Reads as “more shite”, right? Prove me wrong, Charlotte! At the same time, Mark from Ash says their coming album will be “Dylanesque, Beck, Motown” and that one of their new songs has a “U2 vibe”. They’ve also moved to New York.

I’ll say Charlotte’s holding the aces for now – based on those short descriptions pulled out of context – but we’ll see what happens; no matter what, both Ash and Charlotte know how to churn out home-made zombie flicks catchy tunes and I hope they start touring soon.