Followers of Girls In Synthesis (GIS) were flying flags at half-mast this week after the news that the band were no more with the announcement “GIS MISSION COMPLETE 2016-2024”. Time for their dedicated fans to stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, light a candle and play their music loud. We felt we had to mark the event and pay tribute to a band that shook foundations literally and metaphorically, and have remained a constant favourite amongst Joyzine writers for years.
In October 20217, a few years before I started writing for Joyzine, I went to see Yassassin at The Waiting Room in north London. I knew nothing about their support act Girls In Synthesis (“isn’t that a line from Ashes to Ashes?” I asked a friend, “maybe they’re retro-new-romantics“). The Waiting Room is a brilliant, but very compact room, and I was close to the front. GIS took to the stage (by walking through the audience) and then WHAM! From the first number they unleashed Ragnarök on a totally unsuspecting crowd, like the footage of nuclear bomb testing in the 1950s. In their brief set GIS warped time and space in that tiny room and played like they had been given 24 hours to live. I was spellbound, but had just enough wherewithal to snap the image below of bassist and singer John Linger who had been throwing himself around like a Dervish, nearly taking out audience members with his headstock (I had to duck more than once). The shot is near the end of the set as Linger writhed on the floor while guitarist Jim Cubitt unleashed waves of feedback and drummer Nicole Pinto battered us with thunderous kit rolls. From that moment on I bought everything they released.
Fellow writer Ioan Humphries, and staunch GIS fan, caught this shot at their October 2022 show at Louisiana in Bristol:
If you were looking for an exemplar of a Joyzine band then Girls In Synthesis would be it. We may have covered an eclectic range of music and art in our 20+ years, but our mission has never changed: we pan for gold, looking for artists that deliver an emotional punch that stops us dead in our tracks and demands we find out more and share it with our readers. GIS made it into our annual favourites list more than once and we have reviewed their singles, EPs and albums, live shows and also interviewed them. You can see a selection of these via this link.
However, they did leave us with The Farewell E.P – Fan The Flames [Unreleased Original Mixes], the first of what GIS say are a “few little interesting bits and pieces” they’ll be sharing over the coming weeks. The EP is, “freshly dug out of the vault; the original mixes for the ‘Fan The Flames’ E.P. Not sure why they weren’t used initially, as they capture the noise and experimentation better than those that came out, but there we are!”
Like all bands that bring the shutters down they will of course always live on in their music, but other than the power companies who will wonder why the national grid is a little more stable we will miss their ability to turn a live show into a transformative experience that rattles fillings and ignites neurons and synapses, leaving you exhausted and exhilarated in equal measure. So, John Linger, Jim Cubitt and Nicole Pinto, Joyzine thanks you.
Girls In Synthesis: Website | Facebook | Bandcamp | Instagram | YouTube
Review by Paul F Cook
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Great band! Discovered them when my own band supported them at Muthers in Birmingham a few years back…they were absolutely forocious live and back stage were super nice and we discussed a mutual love of various 80s alternative groups.
They will be missed