Preview
GIRL NOBODY
Thursday, June 3
Broken City
Girl Nobody is a band of secret agents. Of course the members would never admit it, but a close examination of the facts and an interview with singer Marta Jacuibek leaves little doubt. Let’s examine the evidence.
First off, their album took three years to complete. The Vancouver band, also comprised of Joey Turco, Jimmy Northey, Brett Drury and Jeremiah Schneider took years to finish recording The Future Isn’t What it Used to Be (a title that sounds suspiciously like a Bond movie). It has an ambitious sound described as, "moody electro-pop with subtle rock elements," but even Radiohead doesn’t need three years to make a record. So what were they doing the entire time?
"Every song that we’d record would kind of be better than the last one, so it would the raise the bar," says Jacuibek. "We’d scrap the old songs and write some new ones. The album had many different shapes before it ended up what it is now."
Hmmm... maybe. But what about the mysterious "producer" they worked with on the disc, a guy who goes only by Futcher. Futcher? Sounds like an operative code name in a Tom Clancy novel.
His methods are even stranger, though. The album was recorded in a series of odd locations like bathrooms, patios and even a cabin on Saltspring Island.
"The motor hotel was where we did the album mix," explains Jaciubek. "That’s where Futcher was living for a bit. We recorded on his balcony."
What? A producer working out of a motor hotel? Sounds more like a safe house, although Jaciubek covers with, "It comes down to being entertained. I don’t work very well in a studio so sometimes I have to go somewhere else to do it."
OK, let’s just say this Futcher character is an eccentric producer who prefers hotels to studios. What about Polish-born Jaciubek’s contact in a country with a newly elected Socialist government? It was there she appropriated the album cover.
"I went to visit my brother in Spain and I took that photo from a wall on some building. It turned out to be Banksy, who’s an amazing graffiti artist from the U.K., who’s been kind enough to let us use it even though we kind of printed some stuff without his permission."
The subversion deepens with the group’s unusual legal connection. While opening for Kinnie Starr, they wore "space suits," onstage which were actually fire-retardant outfits borrowed from Turco’s father.
"He’s a lawyer and he’s got a lot of clients who kind of give him stuff for, I guess, his services, so he has a lot of different weird stuff. I guess he was helping the firemen and they gave him some suits."
Riiiiiight. Either they knew something the rest of the club didn’t or Jaciubek’s ruse is crumbling under pressure. Either way, she cracks when confronted about "the ring modulator," something Northey apparently plays on the album.
Jaciubek tries to dismiss it as a device you plug guitars into before giving up and passing the phone to Turco, who’s equally flustered.
"I don’t... I... It’s hard to explain what a ring modulator is," he says sputtering, "I’m almost at your stage where I don’t really know – where I can’t tell you exactly what it’s doing, but it basically takes tones and it can make them ring like bells, almost, and this creates soundscapes. Radiohead might use a ring modulator. Pink Floyd used a lot of ring modulation."
Nice try Girl Nobody, but your cover’s blown. Whatever you’re plotting with that ring modulator, let’s just hope you’re on our side. |
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