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“Vitamin C”, My Ugly Clementine’s debut album, released in March 2020, was named “Independent Album of the Year”.
Apparat, Caribou, The XX and even the highly effective Adele are among the previous sponsors: the award for “Independent European Album of the Year”, which the Impala Association – short for Independent Music Publishers and Labels Association – awards each year, is definitely renowned. However, some may ask: what does independent mean here?
The expression prevailed in the punk era, it means record companies that are not considered “major labels”, today Sony, Universal and Warner are among them. But indie pop (indie pop for short) soon became an aesthetic category as well: for music that doesn’t fit the requirements of the so-called mainstream. Over the decades, the term has lost its clarity, today there is a sense of history: indie rock sounds mostly in the late eighties and early nineties, like grunge, as they said then. This can also be said about My Ugly Clementine without offending Sophie Lindinger (aka Duo Leyya), Mira Lu Kovacs (also active as Schmieds Puls), Kathrin Kolleritsch, and Nastasja Ronck. They got together in 2019, the name of course alludes to the musical ballad “My Funny Valentine”, perhaps also to the English indie rock band My Bloody Valentine.
“Almost a bit Biedermeier”
But in contrast to this, My Ugly Clementine sounds happy and catchy: The “Süddeutsche Zeitung” wrote about “revived feminist indiepop guitarist” and certified the singing of “Vitamin C”, which in March 2020, right at the first closure, in The Vienna Ink Music label released the band’s debut album, “Just right dirty sound”. The phrase “It saddens me to see a world driven by fear” can be related to Corona. “It’s about self-determination, staying true to yourself, on a small scale,” said “Presse” critic Heide Rampetzreiter: “It’s almost a bit Biedermeier.” Impala president Helen Smith apparently heard more engagement: The album shows that she wrote: “What a great tool music is to promote tolerance, inclusion, and overcoming gender stereotypes.”
Secretary of State for Culture Andrea Mayer spoke of a “strong and self-confident musical statement from Austria” in her congratulations: “I hope we can soon see the quartet live on stage again.”
