The Raincoats

The members of London’s Raincoats saw punk rock less as a rigid style than as a license to create their own unique strain of feminist art rock. The group’s ability to meld disparate sources—British folk, dub, free jazz, gamelan, funk, and whatever else struck their fancy—into something all their own quietly influenced many future musicians, including Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain. Inspired by a live performance by the Slits, singer-guitarist Ana da Silva and singer-bassist Gina Birch started the band in 1977. A number of musicians circulated through the Raincoats’ lineup in their first year, but in late 1978 former Slits drummer Palmolive and violinist Vicky Aspinall solidified the band’s core. The group began touring and released their eponymous debut album, a wonderfully idiosyncratic, clattery post-punk gem with raucous violin slicing through the din, the following year. Soon after, drummer Ingrid Weiss replaced Palmolive, and that lineup went on to release two additional records, steadily expanding the group’s range without sacrificing their homemade charm. Burned out by touring, the Raincoats disbanded in 1984, but when Cobain’s enthusiastic embrace of their music led DGC Records to reissue their three studio albums in 1993, da Silva and Birch reformed the group with new members, cutting an EP for Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley’s Smells Like label before making a full album, Looking in the Shadows, in 1996. Since then the Raincoats have performed sporadically in the U.S. and the U.K., and Birch has released a solo album on Jack White’s Third Man label, but their old recordings continue to sound fresh decades later.