Chicago’s Girl K are dropping a new EP titled Girl K Is for the People on September 10 via Run for Cover Records. They’ve already dropped the title track, and today we get the follow-up single “Hah,” which is a refreshing take on ’80s nostalgia. Sometimes pastiche can really override any artistic innovation one might have when giving a nod to the past and simultaneously taking an older sound into the present. The homage is there on “Hah”—the neon-lit guitar distortion and Kathy Patino’s commanding vocals that recall those of Debbie Harry. But here, Girl K sound like an actual band from the ’80s, their tape newly uncovered in someone’s basement, rather than a present-day group playing an ’80s cover.
The track is dotted with existential lingerings. “It’s just another reason to be alive / It’s just another day before it’s another life,” goes one lyrics during the chorus. In another, there resides a direct call to an ’80s classic: “Come with me / And you’re home / What are we like dancing on our own.” In a press quote about the new single, Patino said, “I think there’s a cool kind of unity that comes with not knowing why we’re all here.”
Hear “Hah” and ponder your existence below.
