Grungy, angular fuzz from South London - proper grim, claustrophobic stuff that feels completely in tune with the country’s suffocating descent into fascism. The second EP from Leisha Thomas under the Alpha Maid moniker, “CHUCKLE” is nowhere near as upbeat as the title might suggest. Grey and overcast, it ties together crunchy Slint-adjacent postrawk technicality with the DIY grit of ‘90s Seattle, but roots everything in contemporary London. Thomas’s vocals lash out with range: sometimes a disquieting snarl, sometimes a pleasing, echoing hum, but always entrancing. There’s an eccentric spirit that recalls This Heat in Thomas’s disregard for stasis or formality. She pieces the record together like a sketchbook, cutting-and-pasting samples and editing her instrumentation with gleeful anarchy. It’s rock music, just about, but charged with South London’s hybrid energy and a distinctly British sense of socio-political unease.
