Can you give a brief introduction to Fake Fur?
Fake Fur are about fun and fashion but with a dark, satirical underbelly.
How did the both of you meet and what made you start an electro pop act?
Anna: We sat next to each other in the same office and hatched a plan to spice up our 9-5 existence... started bringing CDs and playing music to each other to “break the day”. We got into the habit of analysing the 80s bass lines, marvelled at Joy Divsion and discovered Intperpol...
Jelena: Then one day I brought to work a very rough track, some electro beats and a driven 80s piano hook that I put together in Logic, gave it to Anna, and a couple of days later she came back with an ace tune and lyrics... this turned out to be When We Touch!
What does each you of contribute to Fake Fur?
Anna: I am the singer and lyricist and usually come up with the skeleton of song ideas and Jelena will add crazy, off the wall embellishments or concepts which animate them or give them some other dimension. Think of us as mad scientists in the lab.
Jelena: It’s an ongoing “brain storm”! Anna is the singer and her big talent lies with writing vocal lines and lyrics...“mean” basslines too. My background is more in writting full orchestral scores and playing with synths so that works well when working on weird chords and arrangements. But then... we come back together and “tweak” everything again.
Anna: We certainly are but that is not the main reason for the name. We wanted something that was fun and fashion orientated and we see a lot of fake fur in the street market fashion of Camden. On a deeper level we liked the name because it represents an idea that there is no need to exploit or be cruel to living things to feed human greed and vanity.
Jelena: Depends what you mean by “socially aware”. We are concerned about the state of things and, to be honest, the way people think and live will have to change... the damage to the environment, energy waste, the greed.
Your music is inspired by several of the ‘80s electro pop acts, was this the music you listen to as kids?
Anna: My father is an avant-garde composer called Jonathan Harvey, so I actually ended up listening to a lot of Stockhausen, Xenakis and my Dad’s music as a kid. I then really got into Bowie and from there moved on to the electro acts of the 80’s, but I have always been pretty eclectic in my tastes and love rock, folk and dance too.
Jelena: Yes, we both have this avant-garde background and have wide tastes in music and arts (Anna’s dad and our schooling)... but also we had some amazing times on the late 80s dancefloors... there is something very satisfying about the pure sinusoid turned into a bassline... but then being able to be in control of it in your bedroom!
Do current acts as Client and Marsheaux also had an impact on your sound, are they of influence?
We have a lot of respect for both acts. We would say they are not so much an influence on us but would rather recognise them as being influenced by similiar bands and being creative around the same time.
Anna, what is the strongest point of Jelena?
Her freedom of thought and ideas
Apart from being immensly talented, Anna is very strong! There were times when I thought we won’t be able to finish the album, but Anna will see things through even when things seem impossible. I am really grateful that she has this “long term” view on things.
It seems that electropop is having a revival, what do you think of this and do you think you can benefit of this revival?
Anna: There’s no doubt that it is and one of the best things about it is that female artists do much better in this environment that say the Britpop boom of the 90’s. I think the female voice is generally more suited to a keyboard than an electric guitar and that is why there is a surge of female fronted music in the UK charts at the moment. Having said that, every music scene is exciting and experimental at the beginning (as electropop is now) , then it can become repetitive. We were making electropop before it took off (as were several other artists) and our second album will probably be different. I would hate to ever be perceived as jumping on a band wagon - my worst fear!!!
Jelena: I agree, when we started Fake Fur we were not so much aware of the electro revival, we just had to do this, get it out of our system. That’s what creativity is about, accumulating, deconstructing, filtering, rebuilding, then creating something that only you with your unique exeperiences and influences can do.
Besides Fake Fur you both are active in other projects as well, what can you tell about this?
Anna: I am currently writing an album with my boyfriend David Brinkworth, who is one half of Harmonic33 who are signed to Warp in the UK. It is very Sixties influenced, think Serge Gainsbourg, Scott Walker etc. It is the opposite of Fake Fur in a way as it is very moody and quite dark and not in any way ironic. We always drink a lot of wine when we do it!
I also sing vocals for a folk band called The Willow! www.myspace.com/musicofthewillow
Jelena: I love playing the acoustic piano live and was in the Arctic Circle Band till it proved too dificult to get 5 musicians in the same room for a rehearsal every week, so I went “solo” and perfomed my new pieces solo on a local arts festival last year. Oh... and to get my “orchestral bug” out of the system, last Xmas I entered a Finnish Composition Competition and a couple of days ago I received a very nice letter back from Kalevi Aho.
Is being involved in other projects a danger to Fake Fur or does it work refreshing?
Time is definitely a problem but if we make our minds up to do something then we always get it done no matter what other commitments we may have. We are both creative people who like to have as many balls in the air as possible at one time. It gets us off our butts and helps us meet other artists and we always learn something new from them.
So far you have already released 3 download singles, why did you chose to have download singles and how is the response on this so far?
Right form the word go we have been working on a shoe string so download singles were a great way of getting our stuff out there. The response was fantastic. Darkside and When We Touch charted on student radio in the UK (which was absolutely brilliant!) and Freak Me had a debut on BBC6 Music. We didn’t make our fortune out of it but it served its purpose and got us out there. We are massive vinyl fans and would love to release a limited edition 12” ep fairly soon. It would have to be on coloured vinyl though.
The album is ready and we will aim to release is as soon as possible. We cannot wait to get it out there and we are working towards a release date at the end of August.
You have done remixes for others as well as being remixes, what is the fun of doing remixes or being remixed by others?
Anna: I love doing remixes, the more unusual the better. I have remixed so far a couple of electro tunes (Sexy Lucy and Isis Signum), a cult 70’s Brazillian band called Azymuth and an Avant-Garde piece by my father called Last Frontier which has been played a few times on BBC Radio 3 (the classical UK station) It’s probably only because of the family connection!
Jelena: I enjoy the complete freedom one feels when abusing someone elses material. We loved doing two completely separate and very different remixes for Sexy Lucy. Anna’s was very pure, electro, “in the skies” and mine was “dirtier”, all about distored basslines. The band loved it and even mentioned us in their 5 page spread in Rolling Stone Magazine which was a great honour! Unfortunately, they split 6 months later. Anna is much more active in the field of remixes and has done this wicked remix of her dad’s tune for Sargasso Records (avant-garde music record company).
What will be next for Fake Fur?
We are going to put out the album, launch our own ethical clothing line, get a picture of Barak Obama on one of our t-shirts and change the world.
Any last words for our readers?
We love you all!!!!!