Girls in Trouble 'Girls in Trouble' album

Girls In Trouble will be releasing its self-titled debut LP digitally on October 27 and physically on November 3 on JDub Records. The extraordinary instrumentation, vocal technique, and lyrical content of Alicia Jo Rabins' songs capture her inspiring explorations in music and poetry throughout her life. Her lyrics draw from ancient Jewish texts as well as her own experiences with intimacy and violence.

At first listen, Girls in Trouble projects an upbeat, care-free folk feel which carries their songs from beginning to end. What’s less apparent is the underlying depth in the album’s lyrics. A collection of dramatic, artfully arranged stories set to the flourishing sounds of acoustic guitars and violins, the self-titled debut LP is set to be released this Fall on JDub Records.

Girls in Trouble is the songwriting debut of multi-instrumentalist Alicia Jo Rabins. Alicia marries her classical training and folksy punk sensitivity to her penchant for Jewish ritual, literature, mysticism and history. What at first seems like a mixed bag of influences actually provides a rough triangulation of what Girls in Trouble is about: pop hooks grounded in experimentation, subtle musicianship and a taste for ruminative lyrics.

Alicia began playing music at age 3, and advanced to play violin in conservatory programs and chamber groups before moving on to poetry, in which she holds an MFA. Disenchanted with poetry by a series of downtown internships and cocktail parties, Alicia escaped to Jerusalem to study Talmud and ended up staying for 2 years. After she finished burrowing her nose in ancient texts, Alicia moved back to the United States, regrounded and recommitted to creating music.

In the tradition of Leonard Cohen and Joanna Newsom, Alicia's music draws the listener into a world inherently tied to poetry, intimacy and violence. Her vocals—raw, naked, heartbreaking—tell the stories of women in tragic situations. In "Who Sent the Heat," a stunning young widow dresses up to seduce the enemy general; a knife hidden under her dress. In "Mountain," the ingenue rushes out to greet her father as he returns from battle—only to learn about his vow to sacrifice the first creature he sees.

For the LP, Alicia lured three of her closest friends to the studio with the promise of bourbon. The full band includes Aaron Hartman (Old Time Relijun, K Records) on upright bass, Tim Monaghan on drums and Jascha Hoffman on keys and glockenspiel. Together, they traveled to rural North Carolina and spilled their guts and Alicia's dynamic string arrangements onto two-inch tape with the help of Scott Solter (Spoon, The Mountain Goats, Okkervil River).

Girls in Trouble has performed at Webster Hall, Cake Shop, Southpaw, Sixth & I, Glasslands Gallery, SXSW '09 and a strange mansion in Lefferts Garden.

Girls in Trouble biography
Thanks to a TV special on the Suzuki Method, Alicia Jo Rabins, daughter of non-musicians, found herself playing a super tiny violin at age three.

Her parents didn’t know what they were getting into. By age eleven, she was writing “avant-garde” pieces by bouncing tennis balls against piano strings at a conservatory. At age fifteen she was composing twelve-tone quartets. But it was in college, on a two-month sailing expedition for a semester abroad, that she found her real musical passion. An Appalachian shipmate taught her dozens of traditional fiddle tunes, and, playing on deck as the sun set and the gulls circled, she realized her true love: simple chords and old folktales.

The story could have ended there, but as she drifted across the Caribbean Sea, Alicia found herself dreaming constantly of Jerusalem. Sailors are superstitious, so she bought a one-way ticket, flew across the ocean with a backpack and her fiddle, and found a small school that would teach her Hebrew and Aramaic. Plunging deep into arcane texts and mystical ritual, she studied twelve hours a day. At night she snuck out with her fiddle to play in nearby bars.

After two years of (mostly) monastic life, Alicia rejoined the world with characteristic intensity. She moved to Brooklyn, toured with several different bands, earned two Masters degrees (one in Jewish women's studies, the other in poetry), and read and reread the Old Testament. She was haunted and moved by the sex, the violence and the twisted HBO-worthy drama. It was the ancient women's stories that devastated her the most, and Alicia made sense of them by writing her first songs. She wrote when she could – at Appalachian fiddle festivals, cross-legged on motel room floors, and at home on her bed, plucking an old guitar. She could hear the women speaking to her, correcting her, explaining their side of things. Alicia found herself writing in their voices: one song for each woman’s story.

For Girls In Trouble’s self-titled debut, Alicia recruited Aaron Hartman of Old Time Relijun (K Records) to play upright bass, Tim Monaghan to play drums, and Jascha Hoffman to play piano, keyboards, and vibraphone. They headed down to rural North Carolina and recorded with master analog engineer Scott Solter (Spoon, The Mountain Goats). Alicia arranged and performed all the string parts, as well as guitar and vocal harmonies.

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