ARTPAPERS

P3

Michael Pittari: You've just gotten back from recording in Israel, a country wrapped up in ongoing political turmoil. What inspired you to do that?


Jarboe: I've always had a daring, perhaps reckless approach in regard to "looking before you leap." Israel was this opportunity that I thought would either be disastrous or great, but I knew it would be a growing experience if I got out of there alive! This religious Iraqi-Jewish man, Malka, had been writing me off and on since '92; he has a studio and does projects that are only known in Israel. I liked a lot of the instrumentation, but I didn't know him very well, so I've learned a lot about the Middle-Eastern mentality of how women are viewed, the roles of men and women there. It's a very non-western mentality, and I had never, ever...gosh...been put in a position where I had to be tough all the goddamn time. The communication was very difficult, and the whole male/female thing was something I had to overcome. I found myself becoming more and more stoic, more and more hard, and that exhausted me-it just wore me out.

So as an experiment, I think it was beneficial. I'm happy with seven pieces, and I had done some pieces recently here at my private Mothercrow studio with my friend from LA/Seattle, Brian Castillo, who worked on Anhedoniac, so I do already have enough material for a full album. But I'm going to keep doing a few more pieces too. The work that I got done in Israel was very good, but I really had to work hard. It's the kind of situation where they're just not used to dealing with my type of strong woman, so it was very challenging, to say the least!

The main thing I got out of it, besides the music, was seeing the situation there, and learning a lot about what the State of Israel is and the political situation with the Palestinians. I spent a lot of time in Jerusalem, so I have a new interest in my life. When I launch my website, my own personal website, I'm going to do a magazine-not just a music site-and interview people from all walks of life and try to stay away from too many music people. I met several people in Israel who are involved in Palestinian issues, trying to resolve issues through non-violence.


MP: It sounds like quite an experience.



But I wanted the pieces to be abstracted enough to where people could hear it from a source of pain, or from a sense of loneliness or loss and get something from it. I didn't want to have a diary entry or something that would be trivialized or just self-indulgent. I wanted other people to get something from it. So as a work, Anhedoniac walks that line between being very personal...me being as intimate as I can be-and there are so many keys in there, messages and references in there, that are just really personal. This is why I wanted it to be very, very limited; very exclusive and personal. That's why I wanted it to be completely raw and to completely show the pain as best I could, which is why I had those vaginal shots, and the wounds and the scars. This was my concept but it was actualized by Richard in the photographs and Victor Tank who did the design of the CD.

MP: You're literally and metaphorically naked.


J: Yes, exactly, I wasn't even trying to preach to the unconverted; I wanted it initially to reach people who know the history. Without that you're possibly going to miss a lot of nuance; you have to know my work and Michael's work to really understand it fully as a concept.


M: That definitely helps inform it. But while it is so personal, like a good work of art there's a strong intellectual quality to it, in terms of the voices and dialects you use, wherein it could speak to somebody who doesn't know. It's not like you're just pouring your heart out, you're pouring it out through this sophisticated line-up of characters and sounds. I think it's really strong on that level. In fact, it reminds me of installation work; most of your solo work is so intense that it could just as easily be on in a gallery where people walk in and just listen.


J: I agree with that assessment and I do think Anhedoniac is also more experimental. It has been called the strongest work I have done to date. Saying that, the new CD is going to be called Disburden Disciple. This term in itself is a collaborative as it is a term coined by my art director upon discussing the intensive care aspect that is the theme and the concept is that a disciple will do anything to, in this case, lay down their burden. It's going to explore the things that people will do to set themselves free, with a real focus on romance and love and drill bits! There are different voices on it as well, some that I haven't used before-believe it or not! Some of the different voices are simultaneously in one piece. The CD is going to utilize the specific Middle Eastern instrumentation I recorded in Israel, with percussion and violin as well as ballads that may seem shocking to some people after the harsher sound of Anhedoniac. And the photos again promise to be not for the faint of heart.

f :ing that just came out all in one night...it was just frantic...feverish in a very cathartic kind of way.

But I wanted the pieces to be abstracted enough to where people could hear it from a source of pain, or from a sense of loneliness or loss and get something from it. I didn't want to have a diary entry or something that would be trivialized or just self-indulgent. I wanted other people to get something from it. So as a work, Anhedoniac walks that line between being very personal...me being as intimate as I can be-and there are so many keys in there, messages and references in there, that are just really personal. This is why I wanted it to be very, very limited; very exclusive and personal. That's why I wanted it to be completely raw and to completely show the pain as best I could, which is why I had those vaginal shots, and the wounds and the scars. This was my concept but it was actualized by Richard in the photographs and Victor Tank who did the design of the CD.

MP: You're literally and metaphorically naked.


J: Yes, exactly, I wasn't even trying to preach to the unconverted; I wanted it initially to reach people who know the history. Without that you're possibly going to miss a lot of nuance; you have to know my work and Michael's work to really understand it fully as a concept.


M: That definitely helps inform it. But while it is so personal, like a good work of art there's a strong intellectual quality to it, in terms of the voices and dialects you use, wherein it could speak to somebody who doesn't know. It's not like you're just pouring your heart out, you're pouring it out through this sophisticated line-up of characters and sounds. I think it's really strong on that level. In fact, it reminds me of installation work; most of your solo work is so intense that it could just as easily be on in a gallery where people walk in and just listen.

J: I agree with that assessment and I do think Anhedoniac is also more experimental. It has been called the strongest work I have done to date. Saying that, the new CD is going to be called Disburden Disciple. This term in itself is a collaborative as it is a term coined by my art director upon discussing the intensive care aspect that is the theme and the concept is that a disciple will do anything to, in this case, lay down their burden. It's going to explore the things that people will do to set themselves free, with a real focus on romance and love and drill bits! There are different voices on it as well, some that I haven't used before-believe it or not! Some of the different voices are simultaneously in one piece. The CD is going to utilize the specific Middle Eastern instrumentation I recorded in Israel, with percussion and violin as well as ballads that may seem shocking to some people after the harsher sound of Anhedoniac. And the photos again promise to be not for the faint of heart.

FIN