Mashlaw

Female-vocal garage rock with teenage sincerity, diluted by intelligent grungy punk – some kind of a bit more contemporary, a bit more lo-fi Ukrainian version of riot grrrl. The word “Mashlaw” is an alias of bassist/vocalist Maria Grigorieva, which comes from her short Masha.

There is extremely interesting musical background behind this tiny and naïve LP: Maria somehow managed to participate in a number of garage punk/slacker rock/lo-fi groups and release a whole discography at a very young age. All these guys together established their own school of underground indie (which had great prospects for becoming a new phenomenon), but were never noticed by media and broke up too soon. One of the outfits, a guitarless power duo called Vokindogu, is certainly worth your attention – so check it out!

There was even a label PMS Inc., formed to support their isolated, almost invisible to most people scene, but again – the label itself has less than 300 followers. And more fantastically, it was totally schoolboys and schoolgirls movement! When such a young persons are given the opportunity to make their music professionally, we’ll undoubtedly get something completely new, childishly ingenious and out of the ordinary, because the juvenile mind is very different, and – as of today – underrated and mostly unexplored in terms of music.

The story of now Captured Tracks-signed stellar Spanish quartet Mourn proves it, but generally teenage bands are not lucky enough to expect any support. Fortunately, Maria (now 20-year-old) at least kept that youngster mentality, and “Mist” has all the craziest energy of the “PMS Inc.”-era groups. We recommend it to those who are fans of Martha, Girlpool, Mourn, even Potty Mouth or early Milk Teeth.

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Stream “Mist” on Bandcamp.

Mashlaw on Soundcloud, Bandcamp, Facebook.

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