On November 21, 1979 The Raincoats released their debut album on Rough Trade Records. Inspired by The Slits, this all-female band produced what Pitchfork calls "34 minutes of clattering feminist outsider art" that may take multiple listenings before connecting. The band lived as squatters, paying no rent and living on air and the occasional meal and bath.
“It was a homemade, chaotic sound,” bassist and vocalist Gina Burch says. “The way we lived seeped in.”
From liner notes by Kurt Cobain, who listed the album among his Top 50 favorites:
"I don't really know anything about the Raincoats except that they recorded some music that has affected me so much that, whenever I hear it I'm reminded of a particular time in my life when I was (shall we say) extremely unhappy, lonely, and bored. If it weren't for the luxury of putting that scratchy copy of the Raincoats' first record, I would have had very few moments of peace. I suppose I could have researched a bit of history about the band but I feel it's more important to delineated the way I feel and how they sound. When I listen to the Raincoats I feel as if I'm a stowaway in an attic, violating and in the dark. Rather than listening to them I feel like I'm listening in on them. We're together in the same old house and I have to be completely still or they will hear me spying from above and, if I get caught – everything will be ruined because it's their thing."
From Robert Christgau who gives the album a B+:
In their dubious pro-am musicianship and unavoidably spacy ambience, both of Rough Trade's very modern girl groups recall late-'60s art-rock of the Cantabrigian school--Kevin Ayers, Soft Machine, that ilk. But where Essential Logic also recalls art-rock of the Juilliard school, the Raincoats' punk-goes-folk-rock feels friendly even in its arty hostility. If the tentativeness of the rhythms and vocals is accentuated by the medium tempos they prefer, the unevenness of their songwriting means some of it is very good. Sure the multiple genderfuck "Lola" is what sucks you in, but you may end up preferring the other side. As with Lora Logic's sax, the signature and hook is Vicky Aspinall's violin, which she saws rather than plays.
From Red Starr, writing for Smash Hits a 7/10:
The Raincoats play vigorous, passionate, unorthodox music but the sound here is so woefully thin that it doesn't really do justice to their challenging songs and arrangements. Whereas The Slits sounded bold and confident, The Raincoats mostly come across shrill and desperate, though Side 2 is much more like it. But try and hear it. Best tracks: "You're A Million", "No Looking At Me".
From some guy who calls himself Weekend Cigar Smoker on Rate Your Music:
1st listen: What is this shit? You'd have to be a total cunt to listen to this 2nd: This is mad. Its shit 3rd. Why do I keep listening to this? What brings me back? 4th. Its interesting i'll give it that. I dont think ive heard anything like it 5th. Fuck me its brilliant. I am a total cunt. But a happy one
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