Albums of the Year 2024 - Number 92

Like a scantily clad Creature from the Black Lagoon, Manhattan four-piece cumgirl8 has emerged from their primordial goo, resurrecting in striking full colour with a highly-anticipated announcement of new music. After coming-of-age with their introductory self-titled EP (2020), experiencing their own end with their RIPcumgirl8 EP (2021), and witnessing a twisted vision of the afterlife through their first EP on 4AD phantasea pharm (2023), cumgirl8 now release the 8th cumming their long-awaited debut LP.

Described as a utopian, chaotic ‘Greta Thunberg fever dream,’ the 8th cumming (recorded live, entirely on analog) is rooted in a philosophy close to the band’s heart: cyberfeminism, which addresses the relationship between human and machine, nature and technology. Within this context, the record aims to examine our relationships with the online and physical world from an apocalyptic vantage point, even down to its artwork in which the band adorns slime-covered futuristic garments in a muted, murky landscape (representative of an inevitable ‘post-reality’ consisting of our deteriorating natural ecosystem and the dissolution of consciousness at the helm of artificial intelligence). Historically flexing their political muscles via outspoken activism (including protesting SXSW 2024), innuendo-ridden lyrics, adventurous stage presentation aided by costumes created in-house by the band, and merch table Plan C (Medication Abortion) pills, this current version of the band has fundamentally taken things up a notch, unafraid to introduce listeners to complicated themes all while exploring their creative boundaries and looking inward.

The album’s tracklist sonically oscillates between dark and light, travelling intergalactically between distorted, gothic industrialism akin to the retro horror soundtracks of John Carpenter, to Chris and Cosey or Suicide-reminiscent suspenseful and sometimes romantic synth-wave, and gritty post-punk experimentalism. A handful of musical references the band turned to during their writing sessions include Miss Kittin, Delta 5, Lizzy Mercier Descloux, Throbbing Gristle, ESG, Desire, Ladytron, Deli Girls, Nine Inch Nails, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Peaches, Björk, LustsickPuppy, Nite Fleit, White Town (specifically ‘Your Woman’), and Girl Pusher – nods to each can be seen in small doses throughout. Colliding with its varied musical landscape, the 8th cumming additionally sits firmly between hyper-realistic and fantastical in terms of its themes, calling back to the record’s interplay of cyberfeminist societal critiques and the foursome’s lived experience.