What’s in a name anway? Despite giving himself the alias Pizzagirl Liverpool-based musician Liam Brown is neither a girl nor does he share a special relationship with pizza. So, that might be a bit misleading but his 80s-infected dream pop surely isn’t. The songs of his latest EP season 2 feel like loveable yet quite odd lovechilds between glamorous 80s pop and weird bedroom productions. However, there’s far more music that inspired him. The gentle indie-folk of Norwegian duo Kings Of Convenience, for example. And as we’ll hopefully get a new record from the band some day (they’ve been working on it for ages), it’s a good time to remind us of their musical quality. And in that case, the honour is due to Pizzagirl.
One album that means a lot to me would have to be the second LP by Kings of Convenience, Riot On An Empty Street”. I wouldn’t say it has been important in the way I make music, but it is an album that has a lot of warm and cute memories attached to it. I remember hearing probably their most popular track on the album, Misread, whilst diving into some recommended video avenues of YouTube when I had just finished high school, and even though I could barely fathom what nostalgia could be, having just left school, I felt like that song made me feel quite sentimental!
I listened to the rest of the album whilst on train journeys etc. and I remember songs like Cayman Islands and Gold In The Air of Summer plucking me from my bedroom and dropping me in some stoney cobblestoned street on a sunny day in Europe. It was odd to me that I took such interest in an acoustic record because I’ve always felt most acoustic albums to be tiring on my ears. When I had the idea (as most 16 year olds do) to collect vinyl, I wanted that album specifically, but they were so hard to come by, the ones you’d find would be £100! I remember one Record Store Day it being reissued and I managed to grab a copy after insisting to my mum that I NEEDED to have it. I remember it coming in the mail and feeling some weak sense of accomplishment that I owned a record I’d drained the internet in search for.
I probably don’t listen to it as much as I did back when I was in school, but sometimes one track might jump out on shuffle whilst I’m out and it’s nice to have a song that breaks the sometimes habitual Spotify pattern that I find myself in (of listening to the same five songs) with a song that makes me think of specific time in my young school life. The album reminds me of my friends too because when I had the chance to take over the speaker and put music on (which was all the time) I used to always slip a few Kings of Convenience songs (or The Whitest Boy Alive tunes) into the playlist. I think we must have mostly contributed to the high volume of plays they’ve got on Spotify, due to the fact that I listened to it so often. Even though the album came out around 15 years ago, I think it is still a relevant listen just as much in 2019. I hear it a lot in coffee shops and restaurants when I go out still now, and I feel like songs on that LP still feel as though they could have been released yesterday. Me and my friend/camera-husband Ross still love to watch a La Blogotheque session they did where they played some songs from that album to an intimate crowd in a very sepia toned building. I think seeing them live would for sure be a cool one for my memory hard drive.
Pizzagirl’s latest EP season 2 is out now via Heist Or Hit. He will also be performing as part of the INTRODUCING concert event in Berlin on February 6, presented by NBHAP. More information about it and how get free guestlist spots can be found right here.