Image via Charlie Knepper
Sophie Steinberg reflects the ideals laid out in the Hackers manifesto.
cumgirl8 are waiting for me on 1st Ave and E 6th Street, scoping out a pet-friendly café for guitarist Veronika Vilim’s pomeranian, Pritney, who also doubles as the band’s “manager.” I join the girls while guitarist Avishag Cohen Rodrigues searches for somewhere to lock her bike.
As we settle at a table on a corner of Avenue A, the self-described “sex-positive alien amoeba entity” disguised as post-punk futurists seem like a part of the cityscape. I notice bassist Lida Fox wears two skirts, one of them being from the x-girl x MADE ME collaboration, a dream Depop find. Drummer Chase Lombardo is growing out her bleach blonde cut, reminiscent of L7’s Donita Sparks, who cumgirl8 opened for on the Atlanta stop of their US tour. They remind me of girls I might’ve passed on St. Mark’s in high school, but was too scared to talk to.
Before we dive into their upcoming album, the 8th cumming, Chase offers me a HI-CHEW. Sitting with them, I begin to feel like a “cumgirl” myself, a term they use to describe people who belong in their high-tech, divine feminine vortex.
Pritney barks at a shih tzu that Chase leaned out of her chair to pet. “Bam-Bam,” the owner told us.
“It’s not about you!” Veronika tells Pritney.
“She doesn’t like it when they’re small,” Chase, the insightful godmother, told me.
The girls are in sync, finishing each other’s sentences and nodding in unison when someone makes a good point. They reminded me of a small, Olympic team if their event was shredding in avant-garde looks.
cumgirl8 legend says the girls met in the metaverse, 8,000 years ago, when the stars aligned to create their neon realm. Lida and Veronika originally came from the modeling world, where they connected over their love of music and self-expression at a job that often requires leaving your authentic self at home. When Lida was given access to a friend’s studio space, Veronika joined her to jam, and soon, cumgirl8 was conceived. Eventually, Chase and Avishag were added to the fold as the band began to concoct their psychedelic Myspace universe, taking sonic inspiration from The Breeders, Babes in Toyland, and Throbbing Gristle.
With their eccentric fashion and sex positivity, cumgirl8 rooted down in the NYC punk-scene, giving out abortion pills at their shows and playing on the 14th Street platform. The cumgirls move seamlessly between the fashion world and the punk scene, performing at gigs like the Collina Strada afterparty and the “Haunted Hop” at The Knockdown Center alongside Christeene and Black Lips. In 2021, cumgirl8 released a fashion collection, hosting a runway show on the sidewalk in the Lower East Side as models sported Furby thongs and a Pink Panther-inspired top. Recently, the band played at Greenpoint’s Warsaw opening for Bratmobile, an original 1990s riot grrrl band, at their first show in NYC in over 20 years.
The band released their first self-titled album in 2020 and their EP, phantasea pharm, in 2023. cumgirl8 is more instrumental and passionate, reminding me of Hole if they lived in Bushwick in 2024. On phantasea pharm, the cumgirls indulge in their passions, celebrating Pritney and their shared idol, Italian porn star-turned-politician, Cicciolina Ilona Staler. With hypnotic bass and Kathleen Hanna-esque exclaims, cumgirl8 fangirls on “cicciolina,” a powerful ode honoring the iconic sex-worker and cyberfeminist.
Expanding their universe, cumgirl8’s debut studio album with 4AD, the 8th cumming, comes out on October 4th. Their first single off the album, “Karma Police,” is not a cover of the Radiohead song, but is all warped guitar chords and synthesized bass. The band verbalizes their hangover woes and turmoil after having their suitcases and passports stolen on tour. At the end of cumgirl8’s AirTag scavenger hunt for their belongings, the band sings, “Karma is, Karma is real” as the song decrescendos before Lida lets out a final, exhausted scream.
the 8th cumming was recorded directly after cumgirl8’s international tour, at Gonzo’s, a recording studio on St. Mark’s Place, in the throes of a New York winter. They had a limited window to record music, channeling their post-tour telepathy to write songs on a deadline.
“Our universe was voicing their words to us,” Veronika said. “We were vessels at a moment in time.”
The cumgirls saw the 8th cumming as a “digital apocalypse,” marking the start of a new “post-reality” that has accompanied the rise of AI in art and all aspects of our lives. Leaning into technological imagery, the “Karma Police” music video features nods to early 2000s computer graphics and a robotic voice reading the collaborative manifesto from VNS Matrix, an Australian art collective that coined the term cyberfeminism. While many artists ignore or actively fight against AI, cumgirl8 remains self-aware of it, finding ways to incorporate it in their aesthetics and celebrating the chaos of the “new world disorder.”
Taking inspiration from John Carpenter and Björk, the 8th cumming blends elements of 1980s and early 2000s electronica. As the album continues, the girls become more vulnerable as they open up over synthwave beats. Behind their computerized exterior, the cumgirls are still girls, asking to be seen and treated as humans. The sexual energy they harness throughout their work does not give anyone permission to see them as objects, as challenging the patriarchy remains at the core of their ethos.
In the belly of the album, I found myself in a sonic house of mirrors, anxiously waiting for Lida’s deep whispers to turn into shrieks. Haunting piano and synthesizers intensified emotions, disorienting listeners before they travel back to their own dimension. “simulation” is a post-punk ballad, documenting the self-doubt that permeates new relationships. “ahhhh!hhhh! (i don’t wanna go)” is the perfect scream queen soundtrack, while “ny winter” is meant for wallowing in your room.
“The human voice is the saddest instrument,” Lida said.
In direct sunlight, the cumgirls and I sweated it out on the hot, late August day. Bonded by our love of the movie Hackers, no subject was out of bounds as we discussed telepathy, their Hologram Lenticular Vinyl, and navigating post-reality.