Gichard- Chins For Lefty

Out now on Night School Records is Chins For Lefty, the debut album from Gichard, a new Glasgow group featuring Lisa Jones and Chas Lalli. Both are former members of the garage-psych outfit Dragged Up where Lisa was co-vocalist and Lalli played bass. Lalli also played in Glasgow's noise rock outfit Vom, while Lisa came from a background in spoken word and poetry.

In Gichard, Lisa takes centre stage with lyrics that veer between deadpan humour, existential anxiety and social observation. Lalli's music provides the perfect offbeat backdrop for Lisa's commentary which elevates the mundane into the surreal. With a DIY fuelled approach that blurs the lines between psych, indie and post-punk over cosmic synths and drum machines providing the evocative thread stitching these strange narratives together. Together the duo create something less like a collection of songs and more like a psychological takedown of modern life, exposing and exaggerating its complexities and absurdities.

'Cholesterol Test' opens the album with a rhythmic hollow tick overlaid by cosmic synths and rippling guitars that gradually jettison into psychedelic textures. A repeated refrain of "sorry" slowly gives way to a hesitant voicemail apologising for the possible fallout and unintended consequences of some unspecified comment made the previous night. It immediately establishes Gichard's ability to turn social discomfort into something strangely hypnotic.

That sense of social unease escalates further on 'Asking The Apes' surging forward in a breathless gush about "preferring things to people", driven by thrashing riffs and hyperactive rhythms before they're tied to a chair and forced to watch the CCTV footage of their own life. The intensity eventually breaks open into a melodic vocal passage centred around being found flat on their back, face down in the city zoo asking the apes and worms "if they've seen you". By this point they've also lost their job. The whole thing balances absurdity, familial breakdown and personal collapse without losing momentum.

'Posthumous Hologram', meanwhile, imagines a future where a simulacrum endlessly "sings the hits" and takes requests. Over drum-machine rhythms and shimmering guitar tones, layered and spoken vocals recite a litany of familiar pop songs from 'We Are the World' and 'Oh, Pretty Woman' to '(Everything I Do) I Do It for You' all rendered increasingly sinister by the revelation that this holographic performer can't be switched off.

Things slow down on 'Break Up With Johnny Dogbirth' as sparse bass tones and abstract guitar twang underpin a cautionary tale advising escape from an unhappy relationship to avoid the misery of married life. It unfolds with Lisa's resigned, morose tones, its stripped-back atmosphere recalling an almost comatose take of HTRK. Shifting from personal relationships to working life with the loping bass scales and scraping, expressive post-punk guitar mannerisms which frame 'Human Resources' a spoken short story set on a factory floor. Shadowing an employee, the narrative dissects the mechanics of the workers, routines and operations with detached observational precision.

You really need to be Scottish to get away with a line like "You looked like the back end of a bus" and Gichard do. On 'Soft Face' they make it sound both tender and oddly poetic amid shimmering guitar and spacious, echoed, dubbed-out rhythms. Beginning with a murmur and the softly sung "you wouldn't get away with it" it passes into a fragmentary spoken scene about New Year dating, as guitars becomes increasingly expressive and expansive.

Gichard veer back into the surreal on 'Hamming It Up'. Stabbing synths, fractured feedback squall and processed rhythms lead into flailing psych guitar patterns to accompany one of the album's most surreal narratives: adult breastfeeding in a service station while awaiting attendance at a Society of Agricultural Feed Technologists conference, complete with references to the Man From Delmonte (tribute act) and ending on the repeated, darkly ironic line "If I miss the opening lecture on Increased Sow Longevity I'll kill myself", capped by canned laughter. It's funny and deeply bleak all at once.

The closing track 'Your Private Hell' deals with obsession in one of the catchiest songs here. Over jangling guitar, rudimentary beats and synth layers, Jones delivers an account of a one-sided romance built from distance, voyeurism and fixation on a troubled figure. References to carbolic soap, hot dogs, fish and murder drift through the spoken narrative, alongside the droll asides and a casual delivery which runs throughout Chins For Lefty.

For all its eccentricity, Chins For Lefty never feels wilfully strange. That's because it isn't. It's just different. At points it brings to mind the likes of HTRK, Dry Cleaning, and Arab Strap. Night School were quickly sold on this after hearing demos before any live shows and it's obvious why. Beneath the surreal imagery and abstract storytelling lies a deeply human record about alienation, social anxiety, transforming mundane episodes into something funny, unnerving and unexpectedly beautiful. The music is great too. Chins For Lefty is available digitally and on limited vinyl album in an edition of 300 from Night School Records bandcamp