Preview
SHUYLER JANSEN
Saturday, November 20
Bowness Community Hall (opening for the Sadies)
Saturday, November 20
Broken City
Cover art can say a lot about an album.
On Hobotron, the debut solo effort by Old Reliable co-frontman Shuyler Jansen, the outline of a man, filled in with a forest scene, is superimposed on a sterile background of grey circuits. Elsewhere, a white line drawing of a bird on a tree is placed upon a colour photo of office-tower windows. And the white silhouette of a deer appears in a green-hued photo of a subway station.
Put the artwork aside and you’ll find the same effect in the music. Throughout the album, layers of synthesizer sounds form a backdrop, juxtaposing with Jansen’s rootsy songwriting and distinct, earnestly countrified voice. It’s like ones and zeros getting the hell out of the city by hopping a freight train.
Sure, electronics have been merged with traditional styles of music for years. Yet, just as Edmonton’s Old Reliable have been able to put their own twist on the country genre, so does Jansen Shuyler-fy the fusing of electronics with his country-style songwriting. If John Wayne had the opportunity to star in a ’70s or ’80s sci-fi flick, this could have been the soundtrack. However, Jansen says he isn’t doing anything that hasn’t been done before.
"All I’m doing, initially, is writing a song just like Woody Guthrie or John Lee Hooker or any of those guys did. I mean it’s nothing new, it’s nothing groundbreaking," he acknowledges. "I’m trying to write a song that I can relate to emotionally and present emotionally every night to people.
"With the soundscapes and the technology and all that stuff that’s coming into play with music now, it’s the mixture of Davy Crockett versus C-3PO, but I’m still trying to keep the electronics stuff warm and organic-sounding."
Prior to forming Edmonton’s Old Reliable (which is currently on hiatus waiting for the spring 2005 release of a new album), he and his bandmates in The Naked and the Dead played around with country covers using cheap synthesizers. Hobotron allowed Jansen to really experiment with sounds and he has an album chock-full of electro-cowboy goodness to show for it.
"I started building soundscapes with all this sort of synth junk and guitar pedals and just old crappy-but-cool gear that I had laying around the house," he says of the album’s evolution. "So those soundscapes were built first, and then I went through my catalogue of songs. Then we took it to the studio and put the acoustic guitar and vocals and drums and everything on after – sort of just jamming with the soundscapes – and it ended up working."
Jansen says this new project won’t appeal to everybody. "I’ve already noticed a few things, like maybe CKUA (Radio) isn’t going to play the Hobotron," he says.
"I’m not saying it vengefully – it’s not an insult," he adds quickly. "My perspective on making this record is that I want to play to my peers and younger. As much as I appreciate playing to an older crowd, the future of music and people who are going to keep music alive are these people who are 15 to 30 years old, pretty much. So I wanted to make a country record for them, that was interesting enough for them to go, ‘Oh, country’s not lame.’"
He also admits hardcore-electronica aficionados may not embrace his efforts either. "People in the electronica scene are kind of disappointed in the record, because they think it’s not electronic enough. They think it’s not ambient enough or noisy enough. But that’s not what I was trying to do. I was trying to just mix those elements and find a medium between the two."
But like the weather here in Jansen’s home province of Alberta, if you don’t think his latest release is Hobo-rific, just wait a bit and see what happens. This ultra-prolific songwriter is just itchin’ to try something else.
"I’ve got a couple of records already written, so I’m trying to figure out how to do them," he says.
"As far as the backdrop goes, I’m not interested in being known as one thing or the other. All my big heroes – like (Bob) Dylan and Neil Young, Van Morrison, and Rolling Stones – they’ll put out a rock record, a country record or a folk record, it doesn’t matter. I just want to be known as a good songwriter, or a guy who just makes good music." |
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