Bruise Your Ego, the new track and music video by GINS, challenges listeners to check their privilege and take responsibility for their beliefs. Speaking with the musician behind the moniker, Georgie Biggin says she’s fed up of doing it for you.
Influenced by the likes of David Bowie and Imogen Heap, GINS loops multiple vocal parts in close harmony, using synths and sparse orchestration to create a uniquely powerful, immersive and understated sound.
Bruise Your Ego marks the latest in her electronic style, this time combining feminist lyrics with her characteristically ethereal melodies, which fold over one another tidally, underpinned by a collage of voices, synths and rhythms.
“The original concept for Bruise Your Ego came from various experiences of being spoken over by men,” says Biggin, who wrote, recorded and mastered the track. “I felt that my intelligence and validation as an artist were being disregarded.
“I eventually realised that it wasn’t my responsibility to teach them that they were wrong, hence the lyrics, you’re not my problem and I don’t want to be the one to have to fix you. In the end, the piece became more about people in general not giving me and other marginalised artists the respect we deserve.”
She explains how the song developed from an initial lyric about male violence, and about one man in particular. “I wanted to write about more than just that person… After that, the bassline came to me,” she hums a wordless tune over the phone. “The rest just, sort of flowed from there.”
In her new music video, GINS is placed on a pedestal, painted white to resemble a Grecian statue. The pedestal rotates as the camera piecemeals her whitewashed body, a torso here and a limb there.
The statue idea for the video came from Polly Maxwell’s artwork for the single, says Biggin. Like the song, there’s a quiet resilience to the visuals, subverting the objectifying gaze it invites you to consider.
Like a statue of antiquity, some parts of the figure are broken – which for me reflected the idea of trying to fix someone
Directed by filmmaker Molly Denton (Calling The Shots, Tusko Films and Channel 4's Random Acts), the music video is presented in collaboration with the independent artist group Uncollective, where GINS is musician-in-residence.
“We wanted to make sure we included contemporary, less ‘traditional’ ways of seeing a woman's body,” says director Denton, “and have shown GINS in all her glory – including tattoos, piercings and, of course, hair.
“Like a statue of antiquity, some parts of the figure are broken – which for me reflected the idea of trying to fix someone, a recurring theme in Bruise Your Ego.”
Bruise Your Ego
Music and Lyrics by GINS
© Uncollective Records, 2018
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Director: Molly Denton
Director of Photography: Jake Lucas
Camera & Lighting: Bethany Fitter
Production Designer: Gabriel Drewitt
Make Up: Nolly Powell
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