Name: Trailer Trash TracysFrom: London, England
Story: Bad band name, good band
Sound: Radically experimental, Broadcast-y slow-dance pop-songs
Yet, it's an awful, awful band name. But Trailer Trash Tracys are prime evidence that, beyond that first impression, a name matters little; and that awesome music can be made under a handle so bad you're embarrassed to say it.
Any expectations you may have of (let's just call them) TTT are likely to be off-the-mark: no, they're not some garage-rock outfit, or ironic Southern-boogie revivalists. Instead, they're a distinctively strange band built around an unendingly-experimental approach to the pop-song.
Their debut album, Ester, features a series of slow-jams that take influence from Twin Peaks (lifting the iconic theme-song bassline on single "Candy Girl"), Young Marble Giants (keeping things stripped-down and stark), and Broadcast (matching strange, sonic noise to the pure, sweet voice of Suzanne Aztoria).
Whilst working on the record, the band wrote songs in a solfeggio scale, tried recording an 'animal orchestra,' and constantly tinkered, toiled, and experimented at their compositions; endeavoring to push things as far from familiar cliché as possible.
That makes the Broadcast comparison carry great weight, but there's one key difference: where the late Trish Keenan and co were quintessentially English —all BBC Radiophonic Workshop reverence and Wicker Man soundtrackism— Trailer Trashy Tracys sound like the clichés of Americana run through a bizarre outsider filter. Which makes their music akin to the cinema of David Lynch and Wim Wenders, and also makes their bandname —their awful, awful band name— make sense. Photo © Harley Weir
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