Philadelphia punks Mannequin Pussy’s brand new EP Perfect defies the construct of time. How can so much happen in under 15 minutes? Spend 15 hours with the record and chances are, you’ll still be unpacking it; 15 days later and its replay value remains limitless. It’s challenging, complicated, and uncomfortable and, as Blunt Magazine would learn speaking with guitarist and vocalist Missy Dabice, that was entirely the plan.
“It’s about so many things,” Missy explains, taking the call from the band’s first in-real-life practice in some time. “Last year was an extremely complicated year. Things are continually complicated.”
Crafted throughout 2020, Perfect was written and recorded to the background radiation of one of the most turbulent years in recent human history. Throughout the EP, an array of topics that came to a head in 2020 pop up, from internet anxiety to gender inequality through to police brutality and white supremacy. But all that said, Missy would explain that Perfect isn’t about any of those particular things per se, but more so about the grief of having to endure such social inequality. “We talk sometimes about the stages of grief, how they all look different,” Missy begins. “I almost feel like each song [on Perfect] could represent its own stage.”
“When something happens to you, you want to deny that it happens. Then you get angry that it happened to you. Then you try to make sense of why it happened, then you get depressed. Then you essentially, eventually, come to acceptance with the way it is. I feel like that’s what we were going for. That’s what we’re always going for in our music, just all of those stages.”
With their previous release Patience dropping in 2019, Perfect was written and recorded at a head-spinning pace comparatively for Mannequin Pussy. The urgency of Perfect is palpable, though the irony is not lost on Missy that the subject matter contained within is nothing new, nor is it going anywhere in a hurry. “I think everything on this record is happening always.
“That’s the special thing about last year. It allowed some people the space to really realise that and think about how our systems are formed. How our governments treat people and what they do in cases of crisis, and the effect that it has on our lives and how we communicate through digital interactions and things like that. Really putting the microscope on our own existence on this planet.”
Though all the songs on Perfect adhere to this philosophy, a particularly stand-out moment would be the weaponised track, ‘Pigs Is Pigs’; an unflinching assessment of the systematic racism and other sheer fuckery associated with the police force.
“I took that song home and tried to write with it when I was writing for the other songs, and I just couldn’t hear my voice on it. I just heard Bear. And so, I passed it back to him and he said everything that he’s been needing to say.
“We’re now looking at the one-year anniversary of George Floyd’s death. This is exactly where we were last year. Even as a country, America is a country with amnesia for the immediate past. We like to pretend that things have not happened in our history, and we don’t want to acknowledge the things that we fucking have to, to progress in this country. I don’t know…It hurts that Bear had to write a song like that, you know?”
Missy would explain that standing aside and putting Bear front and centre for the story within ‘Pigs Is Pigs’ wasn’t merely a creative decision, but a moral one. “White people need to be loud against people who are racist and governments that are racist. You have to allow the black people in your life to speak as well. It’s about listening and then standing up for it. It’s the only way we’ll destroy white supremacy.”
The aim of the game is to win over hearts and minds, and when you have such seemingly insurmountable challenges such as destroying white supremacy, cataloguing grief or recalibrating social imbalances, it’s important to not lose sight of hope. Even with their nose to the coal face of these issues, Mannequin Pussy and Missy don’t see defeat, just more opportunities to do the right thing. “Australia and America, we have a lot in common,” Missy says. “Our governments have so much in common with the way that they treat people…
“…It’s good that we’re both in that global fight together.”
