Skinned Teen Radio Session EP

One of the paragon teenage girl-punk combos of the 1990s is back, in a manner of speaking! The four tracks on this new EP were originally recorded as part of a 1993 radio session, with Niki Eliot of like-minded UK Riot Grrrl insurrectionists HUGGY BEAR joining in on drums and backing vocals—takes on “Pillowcase Kisser” and “Starch” from the SKINNED TEEN/RAOOUL split LP are both represented, along with the oft-comped “Straight Girl” and the otherwise-unreleased “Nancy Drew.” There’s all of the anyone-can-do-it skeletal punk spark and schoolyard-chant catchiness that defined the band’s early EPs, with the inclusion of some toy percussion on the two B-side tracks that casts SKINNED TEEN as the ’90s spiritual heirs to Y PANTS’ starkly minimalist and playfully feminist ’80s art-pop. The exact intersection of everything that punk should always be—ramshackle, economical, deviously smart, the product of minds that have too often been excluded from the conversation. Limited to 200 copies and already sold out from the source; do whatever needs to be done to acquire your own.

• Reviewer Erika Elizabeth
• Label Vague Absolutes
• Issue MRR #449 • October 2020