Jockstrap’s Georgia Ellery on the Provocative Legacy of Kathy Acker

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Georgia is wearing a blazer in linen and wool Prince of Wales check by MARGARET HOWELL. Dress in silk and wool and Tabi boots in leather by MAISON MARGIELAPhotography by Annie Lai, Styling by Jordan Duddy

In the latest issue of AnOther Magazine, musician and actor Georgia Ellery talks about her love of Kathy Acker’s seminal novel Blood and Guts in High School

TextViolet Conroy

This article is taken from the Spring/Summer 2023 issue of AnOther Magazine:

“I read Blood and Guts in High School by Kathy Acker a couple of years ago, after a Black Country, New Road bandmate recommended it. It’s really striking, juicy and provocative – quite angry, quite shocking – and I really connected with it. The character is this very charged young feminist who is having an incestuous relationship with her father. I was very charged at the time, too – a hysterical woman. The book heavily inspired Wicked City, an EP by my other band, Jockstrap. I like to have lots of imagery when I’m writing, and the book has just the sort of imagery I’m into. It’s surreal, human and quite gross – I put it all into the music. There’s this dream sequence of a monster and a beaver in a forest – it’s very childlike and fucked up – and I fragmented the words for the song The City. I hope Acker’s estate doesn’t come after me, but I thought, well, if appropriation was her thing, how about I contribute?”

As the lead vocalist in the experimental pop pairing Jockstrap, with Taylor Skye, Georgia Ellery is the engineer of an eclectic sound that veers between classical ballads and guttural, industrial bangers that are better suited to the dancefloor. Following a series of sonically unruly EPs, this past winter the band toured its critically acclaimed debut album, I Love You Jennifer B – a record driven by female sexuality, soul-searching and rebellion. Ellery also plays violin in the Mercury-nominated experimental rock band Black Country, New Road and acts. In 2019, she starred in Mark Jenkin’s film Bait – a grizzly chronicle of the gentrification of a picturesque Cornish fishing village, captured on grainy black and white 16mm film. 

Hair: Moe Mukai using ORIBE. Make-up: Bari Khalique using MAC. Photographic assistants: Daniel Jackont and Guanhao Wang. Styling assistant: Annie Severs. Special thanks to The Yards Studio

This story features in the Spring/Summer 2023 issue of AnOther Magazine, which is on sale now. Order here.

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