Music: Lesbians On Ecstasy: We Know You Know

In the late sixties and early seventies, dozens of women’s groups produced guitar-tinged ballads championing freedom and love between women. Many of them were released on small, regrettably forgotten labels. Lesbians on Ecstasy, a queercore electronica quartet from Canada, uses their sophomore album, We Know You Know,  to overlay beats and loops onto these freedom anthems of yore, resurrecting classic, gentle melodies for modern-day break-dancing. The opening track, “Sisters On the Struggle,” begins with introductory handclaps and lets a synthesizer escalate to urgent, playful beats, while a mocking voice repeats “you’re so gay.” Suddenly, a chorus of female sixties-like voices offers up a sweet melody: “We’ve been waiting all our lives for our sisters to be our lovers.” It’s an appropriately joyful introduction to an album bent on making a much maligned genre cool enough for the dance floor. Darker tracks make an impression too, with a creepy, guttural voice reciting a litany of vices—“pill-popping, bush-wacking, bridge-burning, coke-sniffing”—over hard beats in “Party Time (A Womyn’s Luv).” If the first listen feels baffling, give it another chance; the second will yield an appreciation for the journey these songs have endured. Pop it in during your next make-out party to see the result.