Velocity Girl

City of Origin: Washington, DC, USA

Period of Activity: 1990s, reunited as of 2023

Members: Archie Moore, Brian Nelson, Kelly Riles, Sarah Shannon, Jim Spellman

Related Artists: Black Tambourine, I think a few others that aren't on the site yet too

Discography:

Social Media: Bandcamp | Instagram | Twitter

My understanding is that indiepop has usually been somewhat marginal amongst the greater indie music ecosystem, but Velocity Girl is one of those rare bands that briefly managed to touch (indie) stardom. At the peak of their popularity, Copacetic was the second-best seller in the Sub Pop catalog (behind the debut of this band called "Nirvana", who a few of you might have heard of). And they didn't even have to tone down their sound to do it; album opener "Pretty Sister" has some of the most abrasive guitar feedback this side of "You Made Me Realise"!

Of course, they did end up cleaning up their sound a bit after that anyway; but with songs as good as they were writing at the time, there's really no reason to care. That plus a bad mix on Copacetic has, in the past, given me an unfair impression of Velocity Girl as somehow lighter-weight than their noise pop contemporaries. If that happens to you, there's two things that are sure to change your mind: 1) the compilation of their Slumberland singles has an excellent lo-fi noise sound to it, and 2) the recent Ultracopacetic remix is absolutely revelatory of all the things that were muddied up on the original release. This band is an absolute essential to anyone looking to get into either the noisy or the power-poppy sides of indiepop, and we should consider ourselves fortunate that they've decided they have more to show us.