The Head of a Girl - someplace somewhere

Despite having the name The Head of a Girl, this band is run by veteran Chicago producer and DJ Glenn A. Dehmer and not the decapitated brain and skull of a female - although that would be fairly impressive to see. Dehmer set out to revisit songs he once wrote and came back to finish later with a ton of additional talent involved. Thus The Head of a Girl's debut EP becomes less of a solo project and more like a six track collaboration project. Some names on the album include Leigh Gorman (Bow Wow Wow, Adam and the Ants), Vince McAley (GoFight, Die Warzau), Gabriel Palomo (The Streets on Fire, Kill Memory Crash), and Alex Gross (Studio 11). He even goes so far as to introduce vocalists Meghan Benson and Shel Bailey, and guitarist Steve Krason. 

But I suppose all that talent doesn't count for much if the EP's music doesn't come out so well. But it does. 'just a glow' kicks off the EP with a pretty fun electronic beat and wicked lines. The vocals as well as the backing vocals on the track are stellar and bring a level of funk to the song. The next track 'contact high' brings a noisey wall of rock to the table alongside some tidbits of fluttering digital distortion. 

'collide' is a downtempo track with elements of IDM and house involved. This is the type of music that's played in a dark basement club where the booze is cheap and the people are sleazy and nothing about the environment is nice. 'sick of it all' brought in some electronic guitar work reminiscing sounds from the 80s, but the electronics brought it into a new age. 

I'm pretty sure the vocalist changed for the track 'whenwillwedie' and brought out a maturer voice. I loved the earlier voice as it was still pretty and fitted a sort of pop like standard, but this new voice was operatic and fit the overall melody of the song. And it was fairly gorgeous. The last song on the album brought in some acoustic instruments with ambient sound structures lurking in the background. 

So, The Head of a Girl manages to impress very well on this release but I'm not sure if it's just because the producer alone is good at what he does or it is because of the people he brought in on the album to collaborate with him. I would like to see what he would be able to do on his own with this project with a permanent vocalist in place. The line-up is already strong, so he has that going for him, and I think he'd be able to do alright in the future. 

The only other downside to this EP is how varied the genres involved were. While I don't have a problem with that, there are people out there who will find the ADD type of presentation on this EP to be distasteful and walk away from it entirely. But, fuck those people. I like the EP and so should you. Go check it out. 
Aug 09 2016