Last we heard from Irish indie-pop outfit Girls Names, they had switched up their style on the elegant, entrancing 2013 album The New Life, looking towards the gleaming guitars and dark surfaces of vintage 1980s post-punk. Now they're zoning out even further with the awesome eleven-minute single "Zero Triptych," which will see release on 12" via Tough Love. The band explained the song in the below statement to FADER:
"The initial idea for 'Zero Triptych' goes back almost three years, when we first became aware of the Group Zero art movement. Not only did I think it was the best name for a group of artists I'd ever heard, but their ideas, outlook and, most importantly, work struck a chord with me, which I then shared with the band. We've been inspired ever since.
Not quite a conventional 'song', nor EP, we knew about a year and a half ago that this piece of music was evolving into something not conventionally defined in the classic rock/pop vernacular. It's essentially three different sections intertwined, hence the 'triptych'., I don't think this is something we'd have ordinarily tried were it not for the confidence we gained from touring a new line-up around Europe, when we learned to be a new band - that was probably our 'zero' moment.
While 'Zero Triptych' is our ode to the masters of light and shade - Mack, Piene and Uecker aka the Group Zero - it also had a very functional role for us: it effectively cleared our path, 'zeroed out' what had come before and reset the dials. And that's why it's the first song from the new line-up we wanted to share with the world. There's a lot more to come very soon."
Lead image: Sarah Doyle