Michael Becker

News Editor
snichacl@nsnews.com

WHERE there’s smoke, there’s weed.

And where there’s Weed, there are senses to be worked over-

ume.

Weed’s potency as contenders in the aurally zonked-out elec
tronica scene — inhabited by the likes af Cibo Matto, Orbital
and Portishead — is found in Dan Handrabur’s relevant atten-

tion to coxaposition.

The guy’s no slouch. Born in Bucharest, Romania, the son of
an Orthodox priest and a choral instructor, Handrabur cook his

lumps early, learning the violin
and training in classical music.
“Twas fooling my teachers and
parents into thinking ] was
studying, and T was actually just
cemposing stuff Gut of my
own head, but it sounded
good to them. Some of the
exercises these hard-core

hor Russian violin teach-
ers sive vou are realiy boring.”
While working through a
scholarship to study classical
music theory in Geneva,
Handrabur turned to DJing
and fiddling about with rurnta-
bles at school, in clubs and on

the radio, The experience made a difference to the sound of
Weed. “Having started really carly with DJing it was really good.
I didn’t do it more than three years, but it was really intensive.
“Even in school J was DJing in the cafeteria. [ was doing
three radio shows along the border of Geneva and France. There
were a lot of stations that were doing it with a transmitter, EQ
(equalizer), owo turntables and away you go. Ir was a lot of fun.
A lot of us were playing really cool imports from the States.
When the whole DJ thing happened in the “90s, T thought, ‘hell,
I really wasn’t barked up the wrong tree.’ It was really cool and it
was going to become much bigger, but at the time I was still a

student.”

Weed partner Cristina Handrabur, 31, had also tled Romania.
The two met at college in Geneva. They eventually moved te
Toronto and now make music together from their home-based
studio in Burnaby. Their debut for Nettwerk, Hard To Kill was

recorded there.

There are other projects — five full-length albums, 20 12-
inch discs and material on about 30 compilations on vanious
labels such as the local Map Records, Handrabur’s own label,
Outer Sanctum, and other labels in North America, Europe and

Japan.

Says Handrabur, “So, veah, we've been kind of busy.”
The concept for Weed sprouted about three years ago. “I was

Tastes like c

@xkx Bertine — Morbid
Latenight Show, Nettwerk
1999, 0 6700 30133 2 1

Scandinavian pop is per-
haps an acquired taste, but it
is nothing to be afraid of.

Sweden’s Abba and
Iceland’s Bjork are permuta-
tions of true northern soul.
Although when the latter
sings “How Scandinavian of
me” she is distancing herself
from any such generalization,

Norwegian TV star
Bertine Zetlitz also has
enough ralent and personality
to separate herself from the
pack. Merbid Latenight Show,
out next Tuesday on
Nettwerk, Records, shows why
“Norway’s top female artist”
should have a wider audience.

Bertine uses an electronica
vibe within traditional pop
song structures to spice up
the sound. The lead-off cur,
Apples and Diamonds, sets the
mood with a sample from the
1960s hit Spooky.

All of the songs are origi-
nal compositions from Zetlitz
and produced in collaboration
with Jan Bang. Sone cuts
have a lounge jazz teel to
them — on the closer In ALy
Mind 1 reached for the liner
notes to see if the sax player
was Jan Garbarek. It wasn’t,
but Bendik Hofseth has that
spacy ECM sound down per-
tectly. Nice touch,

Bertine’s willingness to
experiment with the music
makes her debut CD more

than just another consumable... .

item, It may taste like chick-

en, but it’s really raw herring

washed down with aquavit.
~—~ Joba Goodman

@ xxx Latin Playboys —
Dose, Atlantic Recording
Corporation/Warner Music
1999, 83173

Here’s an intriguing
excursion to follow up the
1994 debut from this playful
side project of Los Lobos’
David Hidalgo and Louie
Perez, re

Friday, Aprit 16, 1999 — North Shore News — 23

| emotion

Photo Berry Gnyp

CRISTINA and Dan Handrabur are Weed. Their debut disc for Nettwerk is called Hard To Kill.

working on a project called Mere Mortals, an ethnic fusion with
dub, and Cristina was singing on one of the tracks. I said we
should really pursue this kind of stuff.”

The masic is emotionally evocative, yet much of the sound is
coolly synthetic. “I like to record acoustic instruments and teat
them through computer, through a processor or whatever I
choose to at the time. Because of that there’s a sense of clectron-
ics having a soul. They come from cither a source that’s acoustic
— [play the violin, flute, and a few other things — and they get
tweaked around so much they come our sounding sort of
acoustic but sort of synth,” he says.

Handrabur uses a variety of gear to get there. “I pick u
pieces of gear in pawnshops whenever I can, pedals are really
good, also high-end EQs, studio delays and reverbs. It’s nice
when you mix them up, The sound gets a bit richer. [fit’s all too

cke

Hidalgo and Perez pen the
material. Playboys’ producer
Mitchell Froom and engincer
Tchad Blake show us the stuff
through their hip, sonic kalei-
doscope.

We get an avant garde
series of sketches with fots of
odd instrumental signatures,
strange guitars, spooky key-
boards, incongruous sound
bites (for example, field
recordings of an Indian wed-
ding band, laughter from
Perez’s grandmother) and
odd drum and bass rreat-

ments.
— Michael Becker

@ Other new CDs set for
release next Tuesday, April
20 include: The Immortal
Side of Johnny Adams, Blue
Note’s remastering of
Sonny Clark’s Cool Struttin’
from 1968; Spade Cooley
— Shame on You: The
Western Swing Dance Gang
(Bloodshot Records: 25
unreleased songs from
1944-1946 broadcast on
radio by “the King of
California Western Swing”);
Alejandro Escovedo —
Bourhonitis Blues, The
Mekons — I Have Been to
Heaven and Back, Vol. 1;
Pizzicato Five —
International Playboy and
Playgirl.

Also coming out April 27:
Fugazi — Instrument,
Charlie Haden — The
Montreal Tapes with the :
Liberation Music Orchestra... .§

FRESH AIR:

expensive, it can sound that way. T like to use cheaper gear too.”

His compositional skills come in to play all the time, “When
you're looking to write a song and you don’t really want to
spend a month on it, having that training makes it all more easy.
T don’t have to spend a lor of time finding out chord progres-
sions or key changes. It also y ves me the discipline to stay in the
studio for quite a few hours, beccuse [do it all myself, from com-
position to final mixing.”

Hard To Kilt was released in Canada on April 6 and in the
US. on April 12. Hard To Kill lyrics vacillate between abstract
poetry and solid statements. Says Handrabur, “Some songs are
about real stuff. Again & Again is about a prostitute and a
junkie who killed herself. In certain religions they say if you kill
yourself, you come back and you purge your pain again and have
an even tougher fife than the first time around.”

Call ahead to arrange a quick, informative tour of our interactive showroom
and you'll see your next home improvement project in a whole new light!

Maria Brookes, Surrey LJ F. ‘Jackson, West Van. L
Malarkey™ Roof — VELUX” Skylight &
Greg Carter, Surrey ‘ David Price, Burnaby :
Sun Star™ Skylight Vinyitek™ window

Attic Doctor

ATURAL LIGH

705 West 2nd Street, North Van, wwe. atticcoc.com 908-7777

We install, We Guiatantee; Replacement Roofs + Windows + Dodrs