On the Horizon: Unadulterated Elmchantment, Dear Lux.

Cast a cursory glance over Rolling Stone's Garnier-subsidised Women Who Rock subsection, and you'll most likely find yourself thoroughly repulsed by the truly bizarre gender bias of it all. Sickening like the taste of saccharine fruit-scented shampoo, it's a way of thinking that appears immediately antiquated in a time quite patently still tormented by the great inequality of the sexes. Grrr. This became pretty apparent when Wild Flag gallivanted into our every thought towards the tail end of last year, only for umpteen a review to reference the band's sex status as being, uh, exclusively female. Deemed to be some form of slight revelation, it was one that was met with a general disbelief bulging of eyeballs. How could women be composing this forward-thinking, arguably balls-out, straight-up propulsive punk rawk? Same ways anybody else could, needless to say. One realm which is, alas, still rather male-orientated however, it must be said, is that of the lo-fi bedroom producer. Maybe it's the young male's proclivity for computer games; for festering in its own malodorous filth; for the tinkering of recalcitrant gadgetry sheared off of eBay. Who knows. Although whatever it is that gets the glitch going has evidently infected Brighton's Helly Jayne. Operating under the Dear Lux nom de plume, the so-called dreamtronica of Elmchantment chimes with a somehow chimerical crispness as it recalls Tristan Burfield's bouncy, electronica-infused soundscapes of bygone times; times beleaguered with all that very same bigotry. Yet Elmchantment is – at least for the time being – great escapism from all that bloody imbalance.

Dear Lux' Soundcloud.