Dream Wife Dance With Us Through Each Track on Social Lubrication

English rock trio Dream Wife are back with their third studio album Social Lubrication, a delightfully pissed-off directory of band members Rakel Mjöll, Alice Go and Bella Podpadec’s experience with the patriarchy, sexuality and the intricacies of the music industry’s steep social ladders.

Think Sleater-Kinney meets Wet Leg meets new wave pop-punk, and then give it a smokey eye and a fuck-you (but maybe you can fuck me) smirk. That’s Dream Wife’s latest LP in all its glory, and it’s slick and louche and perfect.

In between head-bopping to the album’s lead singles, we caught up with the powerhouses behind Social Lubrication to dance through this album and confirm the underlying emotions with which we ought to scream-sing the lyrics. Listen along as you go, and keep an eye out for upcoming tour dates: “The live show is the truth of the band,” says guitarist Alice Go. “That’s at the heart of what we do and of the statements we’re making.”

Social Lubrication Statement:
Sticky motions dripping with hard hitting emotions, Social Lubrication is an album wall-to-wall with hot ‘n’ heavy dirty rockers, sultry, dangerous, vulnerable, lustful, untamed, feral, political statements with a healthy dose of silliness.

The album was produced by Dream Wife’s guitarist Alice. The sound of the record is citing the wild joyful energy of the live show; raw power, elevated.

Building from solid foundations of trust, honesty and friendship developed over years of making music, experiencing life together, love and rocking out together we wanted to make a hyper lusty gut punching high kick rock record with strong political statements. Exploring the alchemy of attraction; lust for life; importance of community; calling out the patriarchal structures in our societies and having a hot party while we’re at it! Horny at the end of the world…

“Kick in the Teeth”

Self defense, what does it mean to defend yourself? What is protection, how can we keep each other safe, what is safety; physically, emotionally, energetically. Reflections, smoke and mirrors, searching for meaning. How much is it worth? REVENGE! Is it self defense or revenge? What are the lines? Who keeps you safe? Growing into your power…”I’ve spent so much of this youth questioning my value”—being fed up with all the lies you’ve told yourself through the lenses of capitalism and others. The limits you’ve made for yourself come shattering down when really nothing matters. We’re only on this earth for a short while and pissed off about the times when we doubted ourselves but bringing anger into the mix helps us let go and break the shackles to roam free. With cutting riffs and unapologetic, assertive vocals, this song is a shameless rocker that will literally kick you in the teeth.

“Who Do You Wanna Be?”

This song is about running on the capitalist treadmill and falling face flat on the pavement. Moving from hyper individualized narrative to collective action. The individual within the collective. Capitalism consumes everything… Hollow slogans, social media activism without action, leftist infighting, monetizing feminism, soul crushing, girlboss, nonsense. Fuck the monarchy, the social structures that define us. Tear down the unreachable anxiety filled idea of perfectionism. Taking action, hopeful, rebellious, collective, systems of care. A call to arms for change.

“Hot (Don’t Date a Musician)”

Dating musicians is a nightmare. Silly, sexy dig in our own ribs… you gotta laugh at yourself, your friends and also their choices of lovers sometimes. Having a laugh together and being able to poke fun at ourselves is very much at the heart of this band. It is okay and also vital to have fun as well as being a band who wants to make statements and provoke change. This song encapsulates our shared sense of humor. Sonically it is the lovechild of the B52’s and Motorhead. It has our hard, live, rock edge combined with cheeky and playful vocals.

“Social Lubrication”

Exhausted. Done with being polite, done with sugar coating, placating and pandering to patriarchal bullshit. Wanting to just exist, in this body without being pigeon holed or judged for the bodies we exist in. Do the job well. Show up. Not play other people games. Systemic, structural injustice, pretense. “What’s it like to be a woman in music dear. You’d never ask me that if you regarded me as your peer.” You can’t fix something rotten to the core-we need revolution not reform. The lyrics move from unsolicited advice regarding behaviour, presentation and skills to gendered violence. “Your womb is a ticking time bomb”-limiting a person with a womb to a one-dimensional human fit to produce and then be disregarded. A product. To control. We also talk about date rape drugs in the lyrics-another attempt
to numb and control—”push him away say this wasn’t a meeting this wasn’t a date, you ain’t my mate this ain’t confusing, that’s the rear view mirror for fucks sake.”

“Mascara”

A love song to London and romanticizing the little mundane moments in between of time spent in the city. The mythologies we weave of our own lives. Locating ourselves in the space between the past and the future and the dance bringing us back, connecting us. Romanticizing it all. Smoggy London skies with no stars. Mascara bar at 3Am. Gum under shoe. Outline of your lover’s spine. Life is a dance and it’s happening right now in front of us. So we can in that moment let it just be, just dance to the tempo of our liking. Life is to be romanticized. The poetry that exists in between us.

“Leech”

“Just have some fucking empathy.” “Leech” is an anthem for empathy. For solidarity. Musically tense and withheld, erupting to angry cathartic crescendos. The push and pull of the song lyrically and musically expands and contracts, stating and calling out the double standards of systems of power. Nobody wins in a patriarchal society. We all lose. We could all use some more empathy.

“I Want You”

Lust. Hyper lust. A snappy short sharp song about sex. And badly wanting to be bodily entangled with the object of your affection. Being direct is hot. Consent is hot. Agency, sweat, visceral, feral, hot and heavy down to the floor.”Twisted parts and all of your divine.” Harking back to the likes of “Let’s Make Out” and “So When You Gonna” (singles from our first and second albums), this short, dirty, lusty rocker is a lot of fun. Encapsulating the energy, instrumentation and dynamism of Dream Wife’s live show, this song is for sexual empowerment, directness, letting loose and going wild in the sack.

“Curious”

The bisexual, polyamorous anthem we’ve all wanted to write, it’s the one. “I feel too sexy to listen to my friends.” Getting dressed up in silk with your friends and going in search of unexpected encounters at the sex party. Avoiding cotton underwear. Premature confetti bombs. Playful, open to connections and the freedom of being present instead of letting controlling thoughts of a society’s structures overtake your own path of self-discovery. Exploration, self-acceptance, play and being a horny little minx. How sex and connections gets better and better the older you get and the more you learn about your body and what you want and don’t want and how much more there is always to learn. Staying curious in all facets of life is important, to close yourself off from new experiences and continuous learning is a sad way to live. We want to embrace our own curiosity. To live curiously is to fully live. Well that’s what grandma says. We are all constantly growing and changing all the time. Stay curious. Explore. Play. Live. Love.

“Honestly”

We wrote a heavy rock song and then said to each other. “Now let’s do the opposite,” and “Honestly” was born. Heavy tension, foreplay, seduction and the uncanny feeling that we’ve been here before…Deja vu. There’s no rush. Each breathe, each cymbal crash, stroke of the guitar is alluding to each other. Sensual present-ness. Sonically different to other songs on the record, this track shows a more reflective, dark and simmering side of the band. Taking inspiration from Blondie’s “Picture This” (“I will give you my finest hour, the one spent watching you shower”) and Portishead’s “Matchbox.” “Honestly”broods on the female gaze, and enjoys every minute of it.

“Orbit”

Lyrically inspired by a post lockdown London coming back to communal life and sharing a space together through friendship and community. Hot summer nights. Excitement behind turning strangers into friends, lovers or drifters in the night. About how each day you never know what’s in store for you or how a stranger you meet on that day can become someone close to you—be it for a day, a heartbeat, a phase or a lifetime. The beauty of connection and honoring the curiosity we have for each other as strangers—that might have met before in another life. So what do you we have in store now for this one? The entrainment of oscillating objects, synchronization of celestial bodies, magnetic energies. I recognize you… did we meet before? Does it matter? Feeling a connection and deciding to figure it out as you go. Weight and lightness

Spiralic times
Cyclical learning
Patterns
Beginnings