Chicks On Speed – The Re-Releases Of The Un-Releases
“Give Me Back My Man” (Yes…a cover of the B-52s!)
Chicks on Speed is Melissa Logan (from New York), Kiki Moorse (from Munich) and Alex Murray-Leslie (from Bowral, Australia). They use the “Chicks On Speed” name for their music productions, clothing label, design work and their record label (Chicks On Speed Records). Their clothing line is as fabulous and outrageous as their music. Check some of it out here. Along with crafting deconstructed, feminist-leaning no-wave drenched synth pop, the group also runs Go Records, Stop Records, and Chicks on Speed Records; designs video and print graphics and art installations; and makes and sells avant-garde paper and leather clothing. Appropriate to their arty, Eurotrash vibe, Moorse, Logan, and Murray-Leslie met in 1997 at a bar near Munich’s Art Academy. Soon after, they were releasing limited-edition, critically-acclaimed singles such as Smash Metal, which pitted the group against Patrick Pulsinger, DMX Krew, and DJ Hell (whose album Munich Machine they also appeared on), as well as the ironic, pseudo-house anthem Glamour Girl. Their live shows ranged from appearances at 2000’s Love Parade festival to touring with Console and Super Collider to gigs at renovated mental hospitals. Mid-2000 saw the release of their debut album Chicks On Speed Will Save Us All! What’s most noteworthy about Chicks on Speed is, well, their *speed*. They hit the ground at Warp 9 and, without a second’s warning, took both the art and music worlds by storm, designing fashion shows, performing, and recording two records in under two years. And in that short time after their art-school formation, they were taken under the wings of Austrian electro-glitch producers Gerhard Potuznik and Ramon Bauer, only to become instant stars on the intelligent club circuit. Their first US record, The Re-releases of the Un-releases, shown here, is a brilliant collection of their early work as remixed by Bauer and Potuznik. The Re-releases is raw and unpolished but somehow charming and a bit more personal than their import-onlydebut. As well, The Re-releases preserves the studio chatter between the Chicks and their producers and includes strikingly innovative and screamer-worthy covers of the B-52’s “Gimme Back My Man,” the Normals’ “Warm Leatherette” (with DJ Hell), and the Delta 5’s “Mind Your Own Business.” Although Chicks on Speed was originally conceived as an art installation project, they’ve obviously found a niche within synthetic pop music and they exhibit an impressive amount of songwriting skill and social commentary. But, really, they’re just some pretty funny, fast and furious chicks.