We’ve spilled a fair amount of pink digital ink on Manchester indie-punk trio PINS over the years, so we’re stoked to see singer Faith Vern set out on an artistic course of her own. Vern’s solo project The Faux Faux — not to be confused with Boston’s ’00s-era dance-punk innovators The Faux — has released its debut track in “Cold Hearted Woman,” and it’s a devilish snake-charmer of a post-disco tune that sounds better with the lights off but hits harder with them fully illuminated.
“The chorus ‘I’m a Cold Hearted Woman’ is of course tongue-in-cheek, it’s almost like once everything, all your personality, freedom, joy, is forced out of you, you just sorta go ‘ok fuck it, you think I’m cold, well yes, here it is…’,” Vern says, adding: “I’ve always been intrigued by Cindy Sherman, Sylvia Plath, Gregory Crewdson, Virginia Woolf, Nan Goldin to name a few, these writers, poets, photographers, artists, who have shown us the beauty and the desperation in the mundane.”
“Cold Hearted Woman” also serves as the inaugural release of the relaunched Drowned in Sound singles club.
“After the birth of my first child I needed more space which meant moving from my one bedroom flat in Prestwich to a ‘proper’ house,” Vern concludes. “Somehow my husband and I convinced ourselves that we should head to the country, little did we know that lockdown was lurking… I was writing about being somewhere and feeling trapped, anxiety and coping mechanisms.”
Shine a light below.