GIRLS

Beloved San Francisco band Girls juxtaposes the pain and beauty, hope and misery, which lie at the heart of music. "Some of the songs I've been most emotionally attached to are ones that are poppy, they're songs that reach out and grab you immediately, even if you don't know what's going on you can still find yourself humming along," says Christopher Owens. "They have this immediacy because they're trying to connect. So I've realized those artists were huge influences on me: they were saying, we want to be together, we don't want to be alone - will you join us? And that's what we've done on this record."