Vivian McCall’s debut album was the culmination of both a personal and creative reckoning. After years spent playing in numerous local bands, including Jungle Green, McCall returned to her solo music making to understand her gender identity. Performing under the name Pansy, McCall has crafted a short collection of songs that are frank, and occasionally hopeful, in their exploration of her lived experience.
McCall began playing music at a young age, beginning with the piano and later adding the guitar. As a young adult, McCall often felt like an outcast and gravitated toward punk and hardcore music, citing bands like Black Flag, Bad Brains and Minor Threat as some of her favorites. Later, she became “obsessed” with the Smashing Pumpkins.
But in college, she considered her devotion to music “over,” focusing her time instead on studies in journalism.
“In an effort to really avoid my inner gender stuff, I dove really hard into my career and basically didn’t play guitar for a year and a half, which is sad,” McCall said. “It was such a source of joy for me in so many ways.”
She eventually found her way back to making music through the simple sounds of 80s lo-fi and indie rock innovators Beat Happening.
“It was such simple music the first time I heard it. I just thought, ‘Oh, this is ridiculous. Like it’s so easy and so simple.’ But then I realized how genius it was that they had picked up these instruments that they didn’t know how to play,” said McCall. “Which is kind of how I felt at the time because I had no emotional connection to my own music anymore.”
Listening to the band inspired McCall to begin making her own music again. “Trash,” the first song she completed at the age of 19, eventually made it to her self-titled album as Pansy.
However, McCall said beginning to play again forced her to face things within herself. “When I was younger, I really struggled to write songs about what I was feeling, because I didn’t understand what I was feeling,” added McCall. “By the end of college, it started to make sense.”
McCall used a show at her house to “basically come out without telling people I was coming out,” said McCall. Dressed full femme, McCall sang honestly about her trans identity.
“It felt so good. And it felt scary, too, because music was the way that I was able to come out to myself because it was exciting and performative,” she said. “Transitioning is exciting, but it’s also really, really hard and often really grueling and difficult. But the music was a way to make it feel like what I was going through meant something. It was a way to give it levity without feeling like a diary entry.”
When crafting songs for Pansy, McCall aimed to be as minimal as possible, making the songs uncomplicated to drive home the weight of their lyrical honesty. “I wanted the focus to be more on what they were about and the emotional power of the songs, without getting lost in the production of it,” she said.
More importantly, they were intentionally crafted as “unassailable” documents to herself. Rather than try to convince herself to feel better or inspirational, McCall was interested in candid lyricism.
“I didn’t want that because trans stuff is taken in such a particular way. It always has to mean something. It always has to be inspiring to people. And I didn’t really want it to be that,” McCall explained. “I just wanted it to be really honest. That I could read every line and sing every line and those songs would always feel relevant because they were so true when they were written.”
Still, in the end, she did craft one song — lead single “Woman of Ur Dreams” — that McCall described as “uncharacteristic” when compared to the rest of the record. “Not happy, but optimistic,” she said.
The song — the last one written for the record — is a perfect slice of surf rock with a clear pop construction and a memorable hook. No doubt, it is also one of the best local singles released this year, full of assuredness and musical confidence. With simple lyrics, McCall said the track is still the most complex on the record. “I intentionally wanted the voice to sound as masculine as I could make it and sort of emulate these Elvis-y things, just sort of like a “f— you,” she said.
Released this April, Pansy is a record sure to resonate with listeners who enjoy the lucidity of lo-fi pop and rock, the kind of songs that sound like ideal journeys into the minds of their creators. “I wouldn’t say [Pansy is] the happiest thing in the world, but it’s not depressing either,” said McCall. “It’s just a lot of really messy and complicated emotions that I tried to condense into something that was so understandable for me and other people.”
Pansy is available for purchase on Bandcamp through Earth Libraries or on streaming platforms.
Britt Julious is a freelance critic.
