Lande Hekt of Muncie Girls is all set to release her debut solo EP ‘Gigantic Disappointment’ on 15 November. The songs were written while on the road and recorded with Ben David of The Hard Aches at his studio in Cudlee Creek in the Adelaide Hills in Australia. Lande played all the instruments on each song on the EP, which was inspired by ’80s bands including The Replacements and ’90s alt-rock icons like Sleater-Kinney.
The song opens with ‘Wake Up’, an introspective song that captures the essence of ‘Sea Change’-era Beck. Clocking in at just under two minutes, the song finds Lande demanding ‘Wake up, wake up, I’ve pretty much had enough’ and then opening up about her emotions regarding the painful situation: ‘I was a little bit sad after the day you left, after the day that we’ve had’. Following this is ‘The Future’, a tune with the guitars very much tuned in. This was the first song Lande wrote for the release and it finds her referencing climate change and how we’re all running out of time while also focusing on more individual traits like throwing away notebooks and song ideas: ‘Give up alcohol, give up cigarettes, give up on a lot of things’; ‘Men make speeches for a tradition, a tradition that I never did like’.
‘Aeroplane’ opens with lyrics about landing next to a coral reef and then moving on to observations about anxiety, struggling to sleep and the possibility that you’ll ‘lose the will to breathe’. Lande then lays here feelings bare: ‘I’ll leave you, I’ll leave you as soon as I have somewhere to go/as soon as I have someone I want to know’ before delivering a whistling outro. ‘Carpet’, the first song to be released from the EP, is about the feelings you have when all your friends move away and you’re desperately trying to break out of old habits: ‘I’m a nicely placed carpet for your feet, tread on me’. ‘Everything Ends’ combines jangly Pavement-style riffs with power pop hooks as Lande first says ‘I want my bed’ and then ‘I want my friend’.
The slower ‘Letter’ has a DIY indie-pop sound reminiscent of Graham Coxon’s ‘Bittersweet Bundle of Misery’ as Lande fondly recalls being given a letter to read while on tour (‘I remember reading it in the van. I was really fed up with the boys. Your voice jumped out of the paper and it drowned out all the noise’) before situations change as the tour went on: ‘I wish I had a new letter, the old one doesn’t work anymore’. The closing title track again finds Lande opening up about her anxieties, the perils of society and how you can find solace in art: ‘Leave me alone, leave me with the problems you ignore, leave me in the slaughterhouse’; ‘I don’t want you, I don’t want anyone anymore’.
Although it may be called ‘Gigantic Disappointment’, Lande Hekt’s debut solo EP is anything but… It’s a huge success with honest lyrics, powerful observations and potent hooks.
