Bikini Kill Dig Out Previously Unheard Song from 1991, ‘Playground’

Bikini Kill will soon reissue their earliest recording, Revolution Girl Style Now, which was originally released as a cassette tape in 1991. When it arrives, it will include three previously unheard tracks: “Playground,” “Ocean Song” and “Just Once.” Today (Aug. 18), the Riot Grrrl pioneers have shared the former song, which you can hear at Rolling Stone.

In a corresponding interview with Rolling Stone, Bikini Kill’s Kathleen Hanna and Kathi Wilcox admitted that “Playground” reflected the dominant Pacific Northwest grunge at the time rather than the feminist punk sound they would become known for. In fact, Hanna revealed that Revolution Girl Style was actually recorded over discarded Nirvana tapes:

[Nirvana] had all these cassettes, and the record company or whoever was putting it out accidentally put the same songs on both sides, and they couldn’t use [the tapes]. And they gave us this bag of used cassettes, so we taped over them, and then we just put a cassette label over it to hide the "Nirvana" bit. If anyone has an original one, they can peel that off and they’ll see it. And also you can actually hear, because our music will stop first, and then you can hear the end of "Negative Creep," or whatever.”

Revolution Girl Style will be re-released as a digital download and on CD and vinyl for the first time ever on Sept. 22 via Bikini Kill Records. You can pre-order the album at the band’s website. You can even grab a reproduction of the original cassette tape -- presumably without the "Negative Creep" bleed-through.