Album Review: A People's History of Gauche by Gauche

History can mutate when we're not looking. Official records will stifle the many voices that spoke; leaders and winners (usually men) take up all the page space; crowds get squashed down into the two or three contemporary mindsets. So when Washington, D.C.'s party ambassadors Gauche propose A People's History of Gauche for their debut, they offer us a narrative untainted by any gold leaf or red pen: a resistance, an awareness, a dotted line from the underground to dance upon.

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Birthed from Washington D.C.'s punk scene like a manifestation of righteous rage, Gauche--which counts as members Priests' Daniele Yandel, Downtown Boys' Mary Jane Regalado, and Jason P. Barnett--emerged from the Mid-Atlantic bog in 2015 with a seven-song EP, coupling social commentary and new wave riffs. Four years later, the band debuts their full-length, with six reworked and re-recorded EP tracks plus five new songs that find the band sharpening its sound to a steely point.

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Come the revolution, will the rebels man the barricades with skinny ties? The members of Gauche just might. A proudly leftist band whose songs demand justice for all in all forms -- social, racial, economic, feminist, LGTBQ+ -- Gauche also happen to deliver a joyously angular update of late-'70s/early-'80s new wave sounds, as if the Waitresses, the B-52s, X-Ray Spex, and Lene Lovich got together to stage a revved-up throwdown in support of a campus progressive organization. Featuring moonlighting members of Priests and Downtown Boys, the lyrics on A People's History of Gauche make clear that this band is smart, eloquent, and committed to their ideals, dealing with the human side of issues rather than drowning in empty sloganeering, and communicating with a poetic sensibility that's artful but not precious.

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Described by Daniele Yandel, also of Priests, as "an account of events from the perspective of common people rather than leaders, the story of mass movements and of outsiders," 'A People's History of Gauche’ captures both the rotten societal traits and inspiring persistence that is often associated with people on the ground. Tackling topics from colonisation ('History') to state surveillance ('Surveilled Society') and objectifying women ('Rent (v. )'), Gauche take no issue with exposing some of the less desirable features of modern life, projected through their own lens of yelping vocals and tight post-punk riffs.

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