Somewhere in a recording studio in Toronto, Canada, David Trusz and Johanne Williams are waking to the sound of a click track. They are using the heat generated by vintage synthesizers to keep warm, and the warm glow of three computer screens to guide their way. Their skin is pale from a lack of sunlight and their retinas have Pro Tools waveforms permanently burned in. Entrenched in a throwback operation of sorts, Trusz and Williams represent Canada's latest electronic music export, Sissy, and they are on a mission to fight the digital revolution. Sissy's debut album, All Under, is set for release this spring, licensed to GU Music.
Creating music and lyrics based on pure, raw emotion, Sissy exploit the best of new school technology, while leaning heavily on older gear and instruments for their unique character and color. Moogs and Oberheims rumble, tape delay machines echo into oblivion while vocals weave in, out, through, under, and above. Dark, moody foundations serve Williams’ distinctive vocal and clever songwriting, nowhere more evident than the album's first single, "I See You", an eerie, prog/electro driver slowed down 20 bpm. “In The Dark”, one of the album's more floor friendly cuts, features a blacker than black bassline, glorious retro synths, and a serenely twisted vocal. The tracks are versatile – gentle enough for a chic lounge, yet sinister enough for the dirtiest of electro clubs. Impossible to categorize, All Under is the product of a duo inspired by 80's synth bands, early US Hip Hop, UK Trip Hop, and the current crop of breaks and progressive producers.
As a solo artist, David Trusz has released several singles across many of the world's most respected electronic labels, while as a remixer has lent his sound to Groove Armada, Trafik and The Spoons. Johanne Williams has appeared as a vocalist on several commercial releases on labels in the UK and the US, and has spent the last year preparing material for Sissy's debut. With smart and sophisticated electronic music making noise across the globe, the timing of All Under appears to be perfect. Sissy look forward to a year of touring, video production, and the continued accumulation of vintage weapons.
Q & A with Sissy
JIVE: Your new release is categorized as “File under Portishead, Bjork, Lamb”. You’re also being described as “vintage” in many ways. Were those artists key influences for you? Also, while those may be considered as similar to your ‘sound’, what do you think makes SISSY stand out and possibly, more ‘modern’ or unique, as opposed to these simple comparisons and descriptions?
DT: Portishead for sure. ‘Dummy’ and NIN ‘With Teeth’ were two CD’s that I lived on while making the record. Both albums kept me aware of the importance of simplicity and honesty, and both are great examples of how to use technology in an organic fashion. In terms of what makes us stand out, I think that we’re sort of across genres. We’re both fairly heavy into electronic music, and I like to bring some of that production aesthetic into our tracks. We also tend to use a lot of older analog machines in place of software and computer plug-ins and I’m guessing that that’s where the vintage tag comes from. For people that listen to a lot of electronic music, that’s probably something that they’re not used to hearing.
Jo: Portishead and Bjork were most definitely influences for me. The voices are both so distinct and the emotion that permeates from their songs is real and raw. In terms of what makes us different, lyrically I think it’s as simple as drawing from different life experiences.
If you are true and uncensored when creating, the end result is always going to be unique.
JIVE: The lyrics in your songs read almost like stand-alone stories, but unified. What is your process for writing lyrics and is any of the lyric writing a real team effort or is Johanne "the words" and David "the instrumentals", with distinctive creative separation along those lines?
DT: For the most part that is accurate. Jo will typically hatch the idea on her Mbox system, usually a scratch vocal, maybe a kick and snare, and a simple melodic element for support, piano, guitar, pad, whatever. I take her Pro Tools session and rearrange it, build the drum track and add the instrumentation, re-track and produce the vocals, then fill in the blanks. We tend to share the same headspace most of the time so relating to her lyrics is usually an easy process.
Jo: For this album I would say we worked fairly separately. I write all of the lyrics and Dave writes most, but not all of the music. We did however write two of the tracks on the album together, ‘So Long’ and ‘In The Dark’. We constantly check in with one another, sending mp3’s back and forth as the tracks develop. The stories are our own but our story is the same.
JIVE: How did the two of you meet and begin working together?
DT: We met in a studio about 6 years ago, she was with a friend of mine, and we needed a female vocal part on a track we were working on. She wrote up something on the spot, dropped it in and I still love it to this day. We get along great now but it def wasn’t always that way. For a lot of years we wanted to do different things musically, she was picking up the guitar and I was going further into electronic music. For the most part we grew musically, apart from each other, and kind of came back together when we had our shit sorted. We are very similar in that we both want more than anything, creativity and honesty in our music. That tends to outweigh the opposing parts of our personalities. I respect her creativity and opinion and that’s really all that matters when you have to work closely with someone for any length of time.
Jo: We met through a friend around 6 years ago. We had worked on different things on and off until we settled on the Sissy project. From a relationship perspective this album was fairly painless for us. We get along really well and have the same opinion on most things.
We are definitely opposites in some ways but I think that our differences compliment each other.
Finding two people with the same vision that won't kill each other is not easy to find so I cherish our relationship.
JIVE: How much has each of your past works and experiences influenced the new album?
DT: Each one of my past works has helped me to sort my production skills, and more importantly find my voice and not everyone else's. When you are writing what you perceive to be an honest album, it really has to be completely based on your experiences. It’s a snapshot of your life and time at that specific moment. Tracks on the record that sound aggressive are tracks that were produced when I was pissed off about something. Lyrics that sound lonely are lyrics that were written when Johanne felt lonely. If we were in the studio working on a track with a particular mood and we weren’t in that mood, we bailed and came back when we were.
Jo: I think everything that has ever happened to me, all my experiences come through in every thing that I do. When I'm writing, if I’m honest, I will come through whether it’s lyrics, a melody, guitar part, whatever.
JIVE: When you had All Under completed, did you feel you had something quite exceptional here? What is your general outlook for how the project will be received?
DT: I think you always have mixed feelings when you put your creative ass on the line. The producer in me will always see the imperfections and want to go back and fix something. When I listened to it in the studio though for the first time after it had been sequenced and mastered, I knew that it was something that I liked, and I knew that it was a very honest representation of the two of us. As far as how the record is received, I have no idea, but I also really don’t care either way. That is entirely out of my control and in the end we made the record for ourselves.
Jo: I had no idea what people would think or say. We did say to each other at one point ‘do you think we’re going to be the only ones who like this"? I sometimes wondered if people might find it too dark or depressing.
JIVE: What is the one most autobiographical song on the album and why?
DT: Well again lyrically the songs are more reflective of Jo than they are of me. I do relate to Jo’s lyrics though and would say that I am a composite of every track on the record.
Jo: I don't really feel that there is one song that could be autobiographical. These songs represent emotions or parts of emotions that I was feeling at that particular moment. If you took all of the pieces you could get an overview of the person I am, but not from just one song.
JIVE: Is there a song on the new album that you hope a particular person (possibly from your past) will hear and really "get it"? Several of the songs seem like real messages or possibly that long letter that never was written to someone. Or is that all wrong and the album is pure idealism that you are featuring?
DT: This is a question for Johanne.
Jo: The lyrics are 100% personal. I didn't write to "get" to anyone necessarily.
It was more about just expressing what I was feeling at the time. Besides, leaving it open for interpretation allows people to use the songs for their own personal experiences.
JIVE: As for the music, it's very 'haunting' and beyond categorizing as simple trip-hop or downtempo. It has an intelligent ambiance; an intriguing detail of sound that's textured. How does the music develop and what message does it provide beyond the lyrics?
DT: The music’s primary function is to support and compliment the vocal so I’m not sure that it provides a message beyond the lyric. The music is my way of expressing emotion, but I have to be inline with the emotion that Jo is expressing or the track just won’t work.
The songs usually, but not always, start out on Jo’s Mbox system. Scratch vocal, basic kick and snare pattern and a melodic guide of some sort for key. Where they go from there is always unpredictable.
I usually like to get 8 or 16 bars of the track (at its busiest point) working first then expand outwards. Usually drum programming first, simple patterns layered, sub-mixed and processed that allow me to affect the dynamics of the track by muting and un-muting individual layers. Then I’ll create the melodic support for the vocal, I find that the more tools you have at your disposal, the easier this is.
A close friend of ours, Steve Stepanic helped with a lot of the guitar textures that are really integral to the sound of the record. Once the track starts to fill in I’ll usually tweak the arrangement to ensure a smooth flow from start to finish, then track vocals.
We spent a great deal of time and energy ensuring that Jo’s performances were pure, honest and emotional, a process that proved to be tough and emotionally draining at times. Including post production I’m sure we spent a month on the vocals alone. In most cases when the vocals were in we were pretty close, but not always.
There were a couple of instances where complete rewrites happened after the track was more or less completed - always a burn. However for the most part it was ‘fill the holes’ and complete the mixing process, most of which was taken care of through the production of the track. As far as sampling is concerned, there are no samples on the record. One drum loop was used and a melodic string loop from a stock sample disc, and I feel guilty about even using that.
JIVE: Where is SISSY going next?
DT: Live and hopefully a ‘next’ record. But between now and the possible ‘next’ record I would love to score a film with Johanne if something cool came along.
Jo: Hopefully touring, writing our second album…we’ll see what comes our way.
