The new release from Great Northern hums along with a simmering fury that teeters on the edge of boiling over. As we reach ANIML’s chorus, Great Northern unleash soaring vocals and increasingly threatening bass in a way that feels utterly thrilling.
Made up of duo Rachel Stolte and Solon Bixler, Great Northern had separately spent time dedicated to music. Solon spent years playing with the likes of 30 Seconds To Mars, Earlimart, and Sea Wolf, and Rachel in the OC music scene, with Cold Water Crane, and Whirlpool. Working together, the pair jumped into Great Northern, before reaching a point in 2015 where they felt the need to pause, reflect and step back.
In taking a break, Stolte and Bixler found and nurtured new parts of themselves, and brought a fresh love and perspective towards making music. Spending a period of time working without a defined plan or timeline in Napa, co-habiting together with an artist friend who painted, Great Northing found themselves reborn, in what Rachel describes as:
”A life-changing experience and some of the best work we’ve created to date, and a fierce departure from anything we have previously created.”
Following the loss of her mother, and off the back of a career surrounded by male voices, the sound began to coalesce around a more feminine energy.
Great Northern describe ANIML as something akin to the sound of a software integration of Siouxsie & the Banshees and Trent Reznor. There is also more than a little of Karen O’s distinctly feminine sound here – the electronic humanity of It’s Blitz!, in particular. The thick synths and gritty distortion here perfectly complement Stolte’s dramatic vocal performance — check it out below: