Jenny Woolworth’s Women in Punk Blog

There are three kids in London making beautiful noise together - Charlie Mahony, Crystabel Riley and Kiera Fox - known collectively as Maria & The Mirrors. Their live set consists of Kiera and Crystabel banging out syncopated tribal rhythms on their dueling drum kits while Charlie tweaks and manipulates a set of electronic devices to emit a fabulous cacophony of sound, folding all together under shrieking vocals. With a new 7″ single  (”Omar” b/w “From Egypt With Love”) released in February 2010 on Parlour Records, these three are set to storm the scene with their psykick musical invocations.
I managed to corner Charlie and Kiera and here’s what they had to say to my standard three queries:

JW: What is one of your favorite sounds and what does it mean to you?
KF: I am unsure what my favourite sound is, I like lots of sounds…

CM: I think my favourite must be the sound of a Guinea Pig squeaking…significance = fun is on the way! I love Guinea Pigs, they’re an evolutionary dead-end for us to enjoy! One day I hope to go to Paraguay and make friends with a Capybara.

JW: Tell me about one of your most cherished records and why it is so important to you.
KF: ‘Valerie and Her Week of Wonders’ on vinyl because it was a surprise gift and quite rare and I love the soundtrack to that film.

CM: Ooooh well I used to say my favourite records were John Coltrane ‘Meditations’ & Scott 4 by Scott Walker but since I can’t listen to either of them without crying horrid tears that leaves ‘Perverted by Language’ by The Fall! The best Fall album - two drummers! An amazing stripped down careening dirge to a Glitter band stomp and amazing lyrics of a fantastical Pynchonesque nature…and you can dance to most of it too, it’s so much fun! Oh and my favourite 7″ of all time would be George McCrae ‘Rock Your Baby’, it’s incredible, a cry for love over leaden disco beat that intensifies every couple of bars, the hi-hats sound amazing, no verse/chorus just build build build! And the drum machines are as good as any Cabaret Voltaire! And the organ drone shows La Monte Young where to step off! Ah

JW: Who is a woman that has inspired you in your life, musically or otherwise?
KF: My grandmother

CM: Eliane Radigue is amazing! I’ve never quite heard anything like her music…plus I have a repellently short attention span so I find the idea of her hunched over an ARP 2600 for hours, hours and hours an aspirational beacon of how one can focus!

DOWNLOAD: Omar mp3