Upon stumbling on Androids of Mu, I’ve come to realize this all-female anarcho-punk band is hugely underrated. Though having only produced one album, the quartet was deeply involved in the UK post-punk scene, and intregal in getting the label Secret Girlfriend off the ground. Formed by Suze da Blooze, (of Here&Now and Planet Gong, a collaboration with Gong) their music takes on the signature attitude, primal howls, experimental noise of post-punk et al. and punctuates it with spaced out synth, and raw noise thats a bit like metal sheets whipping in the wind. “Blood Robots” on the whole, is really strong and expansive, from a French ballad with short Cardiac-like instrumentals found on “Subtitles” to the lurching “Confusion”, a song that balances angry protests, cheery choruses and an eventual breakdown into warbling operatics.
Though they did not have a female drummer in later transformations of the band, they are known for their activism and support for women artists in punk. They also often tried to have free shows and were very active in the zine community. Corrina (guitar, vocals) speaks to this in a great interview with No Class, saying:
The good thing about fanzines is a lot of the stuff you read in them is written by ordinary people, so it’s more of a forum for exchanging ideas. Sometimes you get interesting information as well and sometimes the poetry in fanzines is really good. I really get off on it. I think that the most important thing about the Androids is that we wanna break down barriers, particularly between nationalities and this sort of tribalism that really separates young people. We wanna get at more of the things that we all share rather than the differences. We wanna accent the things we all share and the grounds upon which people can relate, rather than reinforce the differences, and the separatism. I feel it’s one of the most political things that this band is putting out. That is our main point.
Read the rest of the interview here to find out more about the label Secret Girlfriend and why the band declined to work with Crass. Below is Android of Mu’s best known song “Bored Housewives” and one of my favourites off the LP, “Confusion”.