Thus Love: the small-town trio creating clangorous, fabulous post-punk pop | Music

From: Vermont, US
Recommended if you like: Psychedelic Furs, Future Islands, Simple Minds
Up next: UK dates in February, supporting Dry Cleaning in March

Plenty of artists felt compelled to write and record during the Covid lockdown, but few did so in quite such intense circumstances as Thus Love. The band’s three members – vocalist and guitarist Echo Marshall, drummer Lu Racine and bass player Nathaniel van Osdol – had all moved to the small Vermont town of Brattleboro independently. They met in what they have described as “a small community of freaks” centring around a local arts collective, and the seeds of the band were planted when Marshall was invited by a fellow musician to jam in a silk screen print shop owned by Racine. The latter’s interest was piqued by Marshall’s choice of headgear: “I had a ridiculous hat on,” Marshall remembers, “and I had no idea what I was doing.”

“Within 20 minutes, she’s showing me something on guitar she had written,” says Racine. “It was like an instant connection.”

Marshall recruited Van Osdol at a party “when we both blitzed out of our minds”: the bassist initially demurred, but reconsidered when coronavirus arrived. “Something about the pandemic, it felt like the world was ending right at the very beginning. I was like: why not? This could be my last chance.”

The three moved into a one-bedroom apartment, living together and working on what became their debut album, Memorial, in its cramped confines. It sounds like a recipe for disaster, but apparently not. “It seemed like the easiest thing to do, and also the funnest,” shrugs Racine. “Let’s fucking make a record, because [we have] all the time in the world, there’s literally nothing else to do.”

“We would not have been able to make this album if we were not forced to be in the same room together with nothing else going on,” says Marshall.

They describe the results as “queer post-punk” – all three members identify as trans – which is snappy, but doesn’t quite get across the breadth of their sound, in which clangorous guitars meet supple rhythms, fabulous pop melodies, oblique lyrics – “I’m memorising your inamorato assart,” offers recent single Inamorato – and Marshall’s potent Grace Jones-influenced voice. “As a transfeminine person with a low-register voice,” she says, “I respect someone who delivers with such vigour, who delivers in a baritone register – six feet tall, massive heels, but you’re afraid she’s going to punch you in the face.”

They say releasing Memorial – and acknowledging the acclaim it has rightly received – has been something of a culture shock after making it “in an intense period of total radio silence”. Next year, they’re touring the UK with Dry Cleaning. “It’s gone from one extreme to the other,” says Marshall, eyes wide. “The other day, Lu pulled up his phone and showed me some stranger on the internet covering Inamorato on the guitar.” She shakes her head. “Oh my God. He played it better than any of us could have done.”

From: Vermont, US
Recommended if you like: Psychedelic Furs, Future Islands, Simple Minds
Up next: UK dates in February, supporting Dry Cleaning in March

Plenty of artists felt compelled to write and record during the Covid lockdown, but few did so in quite such intense circumstances as Thus Love. The band’s three members – vocalist and guitarist Echo Marshall, drummer Lu Racine and bass player Nathaniel van Osdol – had all moved to the small Vermont town of Brattleboro independently. They met in what they have described as “a small community of freaks” centring around a local arts collective, and the seeds of the band were planted when Marshall was invited by a fellow musician to jam in a silk screen print shop owned by Racine. The latter’s interest was piqued by Marshall’s choice of headgear: “I had a ridiculous hat on,” Marshall remembers, “and I had no idea what I was doing.”

“Within 20 minutes, she’s showing me something on guitar she had written,” says Racine. “It was like an instant connection.”

Marshall recruited Van Osdol at a party “when we both blitzed out of our minds”: the bassist initially demurred, but reconsidered when coronavirus arrived. “Something about the pandemic, it felt like the world was ending right at the very beginning. I was like: why not? This could be my last chance.”

The three moved into a one-bedroom apartment, living together and working on what became their debut album, Memorial, in its cramped confines. It sounds like a recipe for disaster, but apparently not. “It seemed like the easiest thing to do, and also the funnest,” shrugs Racine. “Let’s fucking make a record, because [we have] all the time in the world, there’s literally nothing else to do.”

“We would not have been able to make this album if we were not forced to be in the same room together with nothing else going on,” says Marshall.

They describe the results as “queer post-punk” – all three members identify as trans – which is snappy, but doesn’t quite get across the breadth of their sound, in which clangorous guitars meet supple rhythms, fabulous pop melodies, oblique lyrics – “I’m memorising your inamorato assart,” offers recent single Inamorato – and Marshall’s potent Grace Jones-influenced voice. “As a transfeminine person with a low-register voice,” she says, “I respect someone who delivers with such vigour, who delivers in a baritone register – six feet tall, massive heels, but you’re afraid she’s going to punch you in the face.”

They say releasing Memorial – and acknowledging the acclaim it has rightly received – has been something of a culture shock after making it “in an intense period of total radio silence”. Next year, they’re touring the UK with Dry Cleaning. “It’s gone from one extreme to the other,” says Marshall, eyes wide. “The other day, Lu pulled up his phone and showed me some stranger on the internet covering Inamorato on the guitar.” She shakes her head. “Oh my God. He played it better than any of us could have done.”