Sydney femme-punk outfit Downgirl return with new single CPR and the accompanying music video features the Sydney chapter of Dykes on Bikes.
CPR is described as Downgirl at their most volatile. Snarling, blown-out guitars crash against pounding drums, creating a wall of distortion that feels both feral and defiant.
For all their ferocity on and off stage, Downgirl are not immune to the same dangers that shadow so many women in male-dominated spaces. CPR pulls its story from a gig gone wrong, a night far from home where the air felt wrong from the start.
Surrounded by drugged-up crowds and aggressive men, the band found themselves retreating into a tiny tent, clutching a baseball bat and waiting for daylight. Speaking on the track, the band states:
“The song reflects the sense of being prey in someone else’s territory. There’s an unspoken understanding that you’re at their mercy, and many of us know that instinctive awareness of how easily we could become targets of male violence.”
The track channels that creeping terror, the instinctive awareness many women carry in spaces where power tilts the wrong way and safety feels conditional. It is a song born from survival and the unsettling realisation of how easily a night out can turn into something far darker.
Downgirl say they want to be clear that real change begins with men taking responsibility for the environments they create, the behaviours they normalise, and the silence they allow. The track stands as a release of everything they carried that night and a reminder that safety should never be a privilege earned but a condition upheld by everyone.
For the music video, the band wanted to reclaim that fear and flip it on its head by creating a space rooted in strength, pride, and community. They centred queer joy and safety, featuring Dykes on Bikes as a symbol of power and solidarity.
Directed and shot by Tim Kent, the clip celebrates the protective, vibrant spaces queer communities build, the places where Downgirl feel like they can breathe easy.
The band came together during the pandemic lockdowns and features Skarlett Saramore, Louisa Harbidge, Kristen Adams and Alexandra Neville.
Saramore used to from Fait Accompli who have spent some time hanging out in the OUTinPerth office back in the day.
The band took their name from the book Down Girl: The Logic Of Misogyny by Kate Manne.
