Gina Birch announces second solo album, Trouble

“Causing Trouble Again” was inspired by 2024’s Women in Revolt, an exhibition of feminist art and activism at Tate Britain which included one of Birch’s most recognized art pieces, 1977’s 3 Minute Scream, a landmark short film in which she stares down the camera and, as the title suggests, screams for the duration of a Super 8 cartridge. Birch created the six-minute track by inviting several female artists, including experimental music pioneer Cosey Fanni Tutti and writer/painter Caroline Coon, to record themselves saying the names of women who have inspired them.

"“For the ‘Causing Trouble Again’ video, after hearing Bob Dylan sing about a white ladder all covered with water, I became obsessed with white ladders,” Gina Birch says. “ I decided to use five white ladders, three with seven rungs…I realized later that this references Jacob’s Ladder and a connection from Earth to heaven, but I think I was thinking of ladders as a symbol of getting on, getting up. I wanted to have a choreographed movement with four of us with these ladders. How do we move with ladders? Do we move together, do we fight, do we dance?

"I also wanted to reference the wind scene from the film, The Colour of Pomegranates, and to include as many artist women from the Women in Revolt exhibition as I could. I wanted them to be troublesome, or just to shout ‘Causing trouble!’ I ended up inviting all the artist musician women I knew who could make the shoot, and it was a fantastic meeting of great women, many of whom had never met each other before."

The track is accompanied by a directed by Birch and famed photographer/filmmaker Dean Chalkley and featuring an all-star collective of fellow female artists including Birch’s longtime friend and co-founder of The Raincoats, Ana da Silva, Neo Naturists co-founder Christine Binnie, singer-songwriter Amy Rigby, X-Ray Spex and Essential Logic co-founder Lora Logic, painter Daisy Parris, artist Georgina Starr, writer Jill Westwood, multi-disciplinary artist and activist Bobby Baker, award-winning costume designer Annie Symons, veteran photographer and Raincoats collaborator Shirley O’Loughlin.

"The record title refers to all the mini revolutions that have occurred in my life; not following the usual paths, falling down holes, making the same mistakes over and over, trouble of being a young woman at a time our options were generally secretary, mother or sex worker. Trouble I’ve caused and trouble I’m in," Birch continues.

"The album is also an antidote to this by celebrating everything I can while recognizing behaviors that may be disordered or strange. It’s a journey through my brain, thoughts, memories, conversations…while I’m sitting with my bass, loops, guitar, and laptop. I don’t censor subjects, I just write them down and see where they take me. The pleasure is in untangling the thoughts and finding a way through."

Tracklist:

1. I Thought I'd Live Forever
2. Happiness
3. Causing Trouble Again
4. Cello Song
5. Keep To The Left
6. Doom Monger
7. Don’t Fight Your Friends
8. Nothing Will Ever Change That
9. Hey Hey
10. Train Platform
11. Sleep (Digital-Only Bonus Track)