‘hairy armpits, oh my god. OH MY GOD.’” “And then the one below,” says Holly, “who’s like ‘c’mon mate, get in the 21st century, everyone has hairy armpits now.’” “I like MexicanCowboy,” says Lottie, with a glow – a regular commenter on all of the videos. “Marry me, Lottie.” She wraps her arms around herself. “Come to Mexico if you are reading this – Lottie for president!” “I’ve always thought it could be fun to reply to people on my account, because it’s not actually me,” says Rosy, again to bemused smiles. “No really, I share my YouTube account with somebody I don’t know. It’s my email address, but there are these videos uploaded of a jumping dog. Someone’s speaking Spanish and filming their dog but uploading it on my account. Or maybe it’s their account. But it’s my email address. I don’t know who hacked who. Can two people have the same email?” — Direct activism — Beyond all the party house surrealism, the stage names and battles between Octopus and Cowboy, if you were to have walked by the front room of this house in the depths of spring’s lockdown, you’d have seen a very direct image of activism through the window: Justice for Belly Mujinga, Trans Rights Now, PPE Not Profit. From the top window: Government Won’t Help, Community Will. They’d have bus drivers come around the corner honking their horns in solidarity, Lottie tells me, which felt like the only tangible resistance amid a domineering reality. On the day I visited, the fallout from EHRC’s report on antisemitism in the Labour Party ended up with the controversial suspension of former leader Jeremy Corbyn. “I feel like…” Ellie pauses, picking up one of the prints on the table. “Just looking at the On All Fours album artwork… that’s quite a political thing. That’s kind of how we see the world going, you know, this fucking crazy place where all this fucked up shit’s going on. That’s how the world can make your mind,” she laughs. “We’re all going a bit insane at the moment.” “I think if you want to be politically active you need an escape as well,” says Rosy, “A place to recharge and find the energy to do all the things you want to do. Having different worlds in your head or a space reserved for imagining things and being creative is really important.” “I find the two worlds merging constantly,” says Lottie. “I can be an activist outside of Goat Girl but I can use Goat Girl as a platform to spread a message I think is important. The band isn’t the escape. I like that we can collectivise people in that kind of way. But also, I feel like I can express my agenda with a nuance. People can find the meanings for themselves. It’s a safe space for people to explore their own politics, more than a direction that says this is how you need to feel.” As the album closes, there is one moment of euphoria – ‘Where Do We Go?’: a song whose climactic sci-fi synth swirls around Lottie’s heady vocals; it sounds like a call to arms. “Oh no,” she corrects me. “That bit’s meant to be sad too. The chords and the epic-ness of it all... I think it feels like you don’t know what to do with yourself, so you just cry. That’s the album in a nutshell.”
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