🎵 IT116: Up Yours
✏️ Lou Hewitt
🗓 27.06.21



Lou is an artist from Chesire, UK, currently based in Bournemouth.

Hey Lou. Can you tell us a little bit about your tape and your song selections?

It’s mostly a little crash-course in punk, post-punk, and new wave led by ladies, with the aim to introduce you to some new stuff from those genres- taking you through all the facets, ages, and branches of punk music written and performed by ladies whose artistry managed to infiltrate an otherwise heavily male genre and industry.

The punkier tracks are from legendary Swedes Kleenex, Japanese masters of punk Otoboke Beaver, the touchstone cheeky ‘lil Slits, and the rompy Australian powerhouse of Amyl and the Sniffers. London band Dry Cleaning take the more passive-aggressive side of things with ‘Scratchcard Lanyard’, and Essential Logic and Lizzy Mercier Descloux take us to the funky place withBrute Fury’ and ‘Fire’.

What direction did you take with your cover art, and what was your process?

I wanted to go for something reminiscent of the cover of Mudhoney’s Superfuzz Bigmuff and L7’s self-titled, which are both shots of the musicians’ mid-movement, faces absolutely obscured by so much hair, limbs swinging, doing their thing. I looked at a lot of gig crowd photography to get a sense of the movement, mostly Derek Ridgers’ festival photography from the 90s and Christopher Bethell’s shots from the recent Download festival. I also wanted it to be really sweaty, which I think was achieved. Live crowds are so… soggy.

What are your fave album covers, records with a great music and artwork combo, or musical projects with a visual component?

I really like over-ornate, playful album covers, especially if they’ve got a lot of texture. Flat minimalism in album cover design makes my skin crawl a little bit. Flipper’s Sex Bomb Baby! has a fucking excellent cover that is (or looks like) a cake top decorated with gummy bugs and fishes. The colours are so great. It speaks for itself really.



Sex Bomb Baby! – Flipper
1987, Subterranean Records
Design: Steven Tupper
Photography: Vicki Berndt


Charlie by Melt Banana for its composition and photography, and I’m a little bitch for song lists being on the front cover like record covers back in the day. It’s a playful noise-rock record, and the cover sets you up for the sound.


Charlie – Melt Banana
1998, A-Zap Records
Artwork: Resource Graphics


Nana Yamato’s Before Sunrise is such a beautiful little feat of modern lo-fi design that reflects the tone of the record wonderfully. The album was recorded over lockdown, hence the lots of little scribbled imaginary friends. It’s just really lovely.

What did you listen to growing up?

I mostly grew up listening to Radio 1 as background noise in the early years of my life, (I know…) because my family were never really big on music that wasn’t easy listening. I found out about AJJ and Jeff Rosenstock and other bands on the Side One Dummy label when I was a little teenager, who did good things for the mandatory angst, and then The Cure, The Slits, and Siouxsie followed suit soon after. Everything after is a blur.

And what’s on heavy rotation for you at the moment?

A lot of Aphex Twin’s old Ambient Works, newcomer London electronic band audiobooks, Aldous Harding’s new single ‘Old Peel’, and Black Midi’s new album Cavalcade. Music is being very exciting recently innit.

What’s happening in your creative world at the moment?

My second year of university has just barfed me out onto the cold linoleum so I have time to do things again now. Mostly painting for myself and trying to set up my online shop. (That’s houseflyshop.bigcartel.com if you’re reading this a few weeks into the future)

Where can we find you?

@lou_housefly on Twitter and Instagram

Cheers, Lou!

TRACKLIST
Kleenex - Die Matrosen / Otoboke Beaver - S'il vous plait / Lizzy Mercier Descloux - Fire / Amyl and The Sniffers - I'm Not A Loser / The Slits - Shoplifting / Le Tigre - Deceptacon / Essential Logic - Brute Fury / The Raincoats - Fairytale in the Supermarket / Life Without Buildings - New Town / Mannequin Pussy - Perfect / Wolf Alice - Fluffy / X-Ray Spex - Oh Bondage, Up Yours! / The Gits - Another Shot of Whiskey / Special Interest - Street Pulse Beat / Priests - And Breeding / Siouxsie and the Banshees - Spellbound / Bikini Kill - Star Bellied Boy / Surfbort - Pretty little fucker / Dry Cleaning - Scratchcard Lanyard / The Orielles - Bobbi's Second World / L7 - Shitlist / Wolf Alice - Play The Greatest Hits / The Slits - I Heard It Through The Grapevine / ShitKid - Sugar Town / PJ Harvey - 50ft Queenie / Amyl and The Sniffers - Some Mutts (Can't Be Muzzled) ︎