So what is steampunk?

Steampunk.com handily gives us a definition:

“To me, Steampunk has always been first and foremost a literary genre, or least a subgenre of science fiction and fantasy that includes social or technological aspects of the 19th century (the steam) usually with some deconstruction of, reimagining of, or rebellion against parts of it (the punk).”

The writer goes on to say that steampunk has expanded out as a genre to include fashion, music, film, tv and even house design. They also point to an issue within the steampunk genre- that sometimes the ‘philosophy’ of steampunk can praise empire and gloss over its bad aspects in writing an alternative history. In other words, by rewriting history, even in fiction, silences around things such as slavery, child labour, gender inequality and imperialism are created.

The rest of the article is quite good and you can read it here:

http://www.steampunk.com/what-is-steampunk/

But let’s have another definition for good measure- this time from urban dictionary. For them steampunk is;

“A subgenre of speculative fiction, usually set in an anachronistic Victorian or quasi-Victorian alternate history setting. It could be described by the slogan “What the past would look like if the future had happened sooner.” It includes fiction with science fiction, fantasy or horror themes.”

Source: Urban Dictionary

A much less illuminating definition but still helpful!

So what are some contemporary examples of steampunk? Well the Robert Downy Jr. Sherlock Holmes films for starters, Emilie Autumn’s entire ‘brand’ but especially her music in both Opheliac and Fight Like a Girl (she describes her music as Victorian Industrial), her book, The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls in the Emily sections and her fashion approach, the bestselling Protectorate books by Gail Carriger (which combine paranormal happenings with steampunk and romance), in Australia books by Richard Harland and Michael Pryor, and if you wanted to get really close to home, a lot of the fashion of the British thespian actress, Helena Bonham Carter, are also steampunk inspired.

Steampunk is everywhere these days! It is fun and inspired and fresh. It isn’t without its pitfalls but it is definitely a genre to watch!

Next post: Steampunk fashion

Fight Like a Girl is probably the worst song on the 17 track cd, over relying on synth and signature growls to create a feminist call to arms. My voice is my weapon of choice… we fight for control, are lyrics that set the scene for the rest of the album.

Time for Tea uses a nursery rhyme to stand your hair on end, beginning in a relatively harmless way, but soon descending into a revenge story with an epic beat and great lyrics. Somewhere in the world it’s always time for tea… revenge is a dish that is best served now! and When I am good, I am very, very good, but when I am bad I am fucking gorgeous are such typical EA lyrics. I also loved the chorus of Hatchett CHECK! Electric Shock Machine CHECK! etc which reminds the listener that we are now deep in the asylum.

4’0clock Reprise is an instrumental version of the EA song 4’Olock. I like to imagine it is a transition instrumental into the past which will explain how Emily got so far enmeshed into madness and asylum, with Fight Like a Girl and Time for Tea thematic feminist choruses to set the mood for the rest of the album. Sometimes sounding like Phantom of the Opera, this shows a different, more orchestral side to EA.

What Will I Remember? is a lovely, sweet song that attests to the power of music for granting rebirth. I love how EA’s voice cracks with emotion as she sings this track, lending real power to the lyrics.

Take The Pill is a standout track for me. Though it refers to the Victorian asylum, its references to the overmedicalisation and over diagnosis of medical ills we see today gives it relevance in today’s society. I love the cold way EA sings this, so automated and heartless, with the doctors calm, rational and absolutely inhumane. Don’t you want to be sedated/don’t you want to ease this pain/if these pills are not effective we will electroshock your brain. Quite.

Girls, Girls, Girls is a traditional cabaret/musical number with EA performing all of the different parts. I prefer the live version with The Bloody Crumpets singing these parts but this song is still all kinds of brilliant with its comments on medicine, gender, sexuality and morality. I think that EA’s skills as a lyricist come out in this song in particular, though the entire album sports great lyrics. A portrait of insanity, approached with pure humanity. The irony is beautiful.

I Don’t Understand is one of the few songs on this album that doesn’t work for me. I feel that this album works best when EA works with the concept of gender, madness and the medical community, rather than when she tries to tell the specific story of her book. This song refers to a scene directly from her book, is sing speaking, and really adds nothing to the album.

We Want Them Young sees a return of the doctor’s to the cd with an interesting and different intro for an EA compilation, focussing on tribal sounding drums and impersonal, cold tones. look to your daughters, look to your wives, sends shivers down my spine with its cold impartiality and brutality. The inmates cry of I should be home by now/someone will come for me is also absolutely heartbreaking

If I Burn is signature Emilie with her warbling vocals and growls. If I rise up in smoke around your eyes you’ll know it’s me is very creepy as the inmates start planning revenge. I especially loved the ending where Emilie sings powerfully, It’s not over till it’s over, and it’s never over, with one of the album’s major themes the ability to fight back and to fight on, regardless of the odds.

Scavenger is another skin crawling song about those who serve the medical community with their hunts for the poor to perform experiments upon. Not strictly historically accurate, but in a steampunk universe who cares? I loved the way this song also relates itself to the capitalist status quo with lyrics like This isn’t personal/we’ve all got mouths to feed/supply and demand. The call and response between the scavenger and the inmates with supply and demand and someone will come for me, are repeated in this song to great effect.

Gaslight is an inmate song filled with pain and depair at the realisation that no one is coming to the inmate’s rescue, and that what’s more, society knows what is happening and doesn’t care because medicine is power. Emilie’s cracking and broken voice adds so much to this song. Even my Mum, who doesn’t listen to EA, found this song touching by the time it got to and nobody’s coming, coming to take me home.

The Key is a straight out narration/poem set to music and again is an album weak point because EA tries to tell the story of her book directly.

Hell is Empty and Gaslight Reprise are instrumentals as the inmates take control of the asylum.

Goodnight Sweet Ladies is a bit of a throwback to Enchant era Emilie, with  beautiful overlaid voices delivering a musical eulogy to those who died or were battered for the sake of the asylum and an escape to freedom. You lie but sleeping, someday we will meet again, made me all teary and the clever mix of original lyrics and The Art of Suicide and 4’Oclock were a pleasant surprise. The first time I listened to this album, Goodnight Sweet Ladies was a standout.

Start Another Story  seems to be the logical conclusion to What will I Remember? focussing on picking oneself up off the floor despite difficult times with the call of Just remember a day gone by, is never really gone, if your tale goes on.

One Foot In Front of the Other ends the album on another stand out track. Its marching beat and staccato sing song style rests on the premise of hope for the future. The inmates are changed and bruised by their encounters with the asylum but their revolution has been successful and now what identity and name will they make for themselves? My favourite lines are If I’ve no one to fight/how do I know who I am?/One foot in front of the other foot with Emilie acknowledging that winning the battle is only half the win. There are no easy answers, but if you don’t give up, you haven’t lost.

Steampunk clangs, grinds, growls and cranking permeate the album’s sound. Emilie’s voice has never seemed so versatile, her lyrics never more powerful. A friend of mine described Fight Like a Girl as one where it’s first two songs seem so outrageous you think EA is exaggerating the need for feminist and medical revolution. The genius lies in the fact that by CD’s end, you agree with every damn word the woman sings. If you take this cd to be a blow by blow musical to her book, I think you will be disappointed but if you take this album to be a very clever concept album of madness, power and gender in the Georgian and Victorian era, with clear parallels to now, it is sheer genius. More accomplished than her other two studio albums, this is my favourite EA album yet.

Fight Like a Girl: 5/5 inky stars

The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls, Emilie Autumn. 

Available from Emilie Autumn’s website for $60 USD (New)

Emilie Autumn and her Bloody Crumpets, inviting the audience into the asylum as plague rats…

Emilie Autumn’s self published, enormous tome traces two stories which weave into one. Emilie tells her own story of her stay in an American mental hospital after an attempted suicide and  a history of bi-polar. Finding letters in her locker dating back to the 19th century and an English asylum, she soon finds her own story dovetailing with the story of Emily with a “Y” who, alongside other insane women, take over the asylum in an insurrection of courage, fear and finally, hope.

From the blurb:

Straddling the bookshelves somewhere between psychological study, historical horror story, and fantasy fiction sits Emilie Autumn’s debut autobiographical novel, “The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls.”
Written and illustrated by the notoriously manic-depressive rock star, this chilling tale combines humor, tragedy, and suspense to produce a blood-curdling account of the nightmare that is life inside an insane asylum, comparing those from the Victorian era with our modern day version, and proving, through her own personal experiences, that not much has changed from then to now…
It is a reality-bending thriller as well as a profoundly empowering tale of suffering, sisterhood, and revenge that culminates in what is perhaps one of the most suspenseful cliff-hangers of all time.
Prepare yourself to enter a world most pray never to visit. But beware: It is much easier to get into the Asylum than it is to get out…

Aside from the obvious link of the mental institution, it is the common theme of attempted suicide that really ties the two stories together and there were a lot of moments where I really was forced to think hard about issues to do with this. Fans of Emilie Autumn’s Opheliac, will see where songs like 4 o’clock, (why can I never go back to bed/whose is the voice ringing in my head) and Let the Record Show (That you murdered me in your coldest blood/with your own two hands. Don’t they know and understand/it happens every day) come from.

There are many photographs, drawings, colour illustrations and handwritten pieces throughout that add to the believeability of the story and daw you into the book’s world. By the time I was about a quarter of the way through the book, I was starting to feel very, very unsettled and I think that was the purpose of including this extra material.

This is not an easy book. It is a book that doesn’t shy away from suicide, drug abuse, rape, assault, self harm and murder. This is not a “fun, light hearted” book. This is a book about society and about women’s “place” in it. This is a book about mental illness and about how as a society we deal with mental illness. This is a book about bad things happening to good people, about the status quo, about the medical profession, about social stigma and prejudice. This is a heartbreakingly honest book about the west and ‘madness,’ and about medicine and the silencing of women in history.

It is also one of the best books I have ever read.

The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls: 5/5 inky stars