Art-pop, technicolour storytelling, and unbridled creativity: ĠENN return this week with Liminal, their first big release since their 2018 debut Titty Monster. A shift away from punky noise-pop, as well as the undesirable adaptations to their writing process brought about by COVID, has spawned an EP that’s a total delight – surrealism, escapism, hooks and intricate instrumentals form Liminal’s backbone. We delved into the magic with guitarist Janelle Borg.
When a band releases a song entitled Mackerel’s Funky Mission, they barely need to say more – we’re interested. “It’s random AF!” says Janelle, calling it her favourite moment from the EP. “The whole story is totally unexpected, if I was listening to the radio I wouldn’t expect somebody to start talking about, you know [the journey of a fish back to its homeland Malta, where the band are from]! So that one is definitely a random standout.”
Mackerel’s Funky Mission was as much of a surprise to the other members of ĠENN as it is to listeners, thanks to lockdown’s isolated, remote writing sessions. “Before the lockdown we had a session where we discussed the main things, but we didn’t even know what the lyrics were gonna be before the recording!” Janelle tells us, “Leona [vocalist and lyricist] doesn’t like to show us her stuff, so we don’t know the tunes, we don’t know the melody lines, anything, we had no idea what she was gonna sing!”
Despite the element of surprise, Liminal is a strikingly cohesive EP even though it covers a real handful of different sounds and styles. It’s a kind of mission statement for ĠENN – “people used to pigeonhole us as Riot Grrrl, and we wanted to move away from that label and be a bit more fluid. Catalyst is a bit more punky, but we didn’t release that as a single because we didn’t want people to think oh, they’re doing the whole Titty Monster thing again. With the singles we wanted to show a bit of an evolution, we’re not the type of band that can be pigeonholed.”
They may be experts at penning a punky banger à la Titty Monster, but ĠENN have definitely proved on Liminal that they’re even better when they’re breaking boundaries, and most important, having fun with it. “We like experimenting with different sounds, we’re like kids! In a sense that kids don’t discriminate when it comes to anything, we try to keep that door of opportunity open, we don’t exclude any type of genre. The industry tries to pigeonhole you in a certain category, but nowadays that’s changing and even with pop acts. Hopefully the boundaries between different genres become less and less clear, which is cool with us!”
The EP is titled Liminal, a fitting nod to the unboundaried sounds that build it up and the musical transition that ĠENN are in themselves. “When we had that initial brainstorming session, we discussed themes like coming of age, the transition period between being at an age and transitioning into adulthood, and that kind of vibe, so the concept of liminality was thrown around from the first day. I studied anthropology as my degree and it was always a concept that fascinated me… after we recorded everything we tried to steer away from Liminal just in case it sounded too pretentious or something, but after going back and forth and not liking anything we were like, man, it’s been there all along!”
ĠENN were also on the brink of a big transition themselves when COVID stopped them in their tracks, so they’ve been in a kind of state of liminality themselves for a year – even more so than the rest of the world! “We were in the transition phase between having a day job and doing the band full time in early 2020!” Janelle shares, “but fortunately when this whole thing started we still had our day jobs. The live element is a big part of us as a band, so we were receiving cancellations every day, so it’s fortunate that we didn’t quite make that step cos that would have fucked us up. Hopefully it happens ASAP, cos all of us are fed up of this balancing act! It’s like having two full time jobs, and if this thing takes much longer it’s gonna be exhausting having to extend that dream.”
It’s the music that keeps the dream alive and kicking, and ĠENN really do love doing it, no matter the challenges – COVID, industry pigeonholing, bring it all on. They might not sound as Riot Grrrl as they did on Titty Monster, but the attitude still bubbles way – “in a way, we don’t give a fuck what people think. If we like a song, we like it. We don’t care if people are gonna judge it as being too pop or too punk or whatever. We love what we love.”
Liminal is out March 30th.
