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Music

Jessy Lanza

JESSY LANZA at the Garrison (1197 Dundas West), Saturday (November 2), 8 pm. $10. RT, SS, TF.


Quick, name a city that’s a mecca for electronic music.

Most people would probably come up with Berlin, Detroit or London. Perhaps a few would say Montreal or Toronto.

But what about Hamilton? The Hammer’s best-known musical exports tend to be The Edge-friendly bands (Arkells, the Reason), drummers (Rush’s Neil Peart, I Mother Earth’s Christian Tanna) or producers (Daniel Lanois).

Not that the city’s proclivity for rock fazes electro-R&B artist Jessy Lanza.

“People in Hamilton are so proud, especially the rock bands that come out of there,” she says, wearing a Tiger-Cats sweater when I meet her in a Montreal park to discuss her debut album. (She’s there for the Pop Montreal music festival.)

“Another thing about the Hamilton music scene is that you can do what you want and people won’t be judgmental.”

The former Concordia jazz performance student planned to become a teacher before meeting fellow Hamiltonian Jeremy Greenspan, one-half of the Junior Boys. The other half, Matt Didemus, is her best friend’s brother, so the two women were regulars at the synth-pop duo’s shows.

Besides helping to write and produce the album, Greenspan also played early versions of Lanza’s songs to Steven Goodman, founder of London-based electronic label Hyperdub, who agreed to put it out.

Drawing on disparate and eclectic influences including Detroit techno, 70s soft rock duo Seals and Crofts and R&B hitmaker The-Dream, Pull My Hair Back has Lanza breathily cooing over a stark, minimalist background of blips and burbling synths. Like most of the best dance music, the lyrics are straightforward and unfussy, which she explains was a conscious decision.

“I have bad anxiety about writing lyrics, and I hate really laboured ones,” she says. “I don’t think of myself as a singer particularly, so when I was doing the vocals I tried to treat it like a textural layer in the music.”

The attention the record has received has led to multiple collaboration offers, but Lanza is focusing solely on her upcoming European tour.

“Because the project is me and Jeremy, there’s this assumption that I’m just a singer. If I start doing guest vocals all the time, I’m just going to affirm that belief.”

Without missing a beat, she adds, “There’s no support on this tour – it’s just me.”

music@nowtoronto.com

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