By Jodi Root

It’s no secret to anyone that I’m a huge fan of the Handsome Furs. I’ve checked them 3 times in the past 3 months alone, and I still can never get enough of their addictive, energetic dance party live action. This Canadian husband/wife duo brought their killer mad beats to Chicago’s Do the Division Street Fest a few weeks back, along with Viva Voce and Chicago natives Flosstradamus. Later that same night, I had the pleasure of chatting with Alexei and Dan at the Holy Fuck/Crocodiles show at the Empty Bottle. I can honestly say I’ve never met nicer, more down to earth folks in the music biz–which makes me enjoy their most recent release Face Control, that much more. Alexei was kind enough to participate in our 5 Questions feature below–I definitely recommend checking this duo live any chance you get.

Could you lend some information on the recording process of Face Control? Where and how was it recorded, and were there any lessons learned towards future recording sessions?

The whole album was recorded at our headquarters in Montreal. We had written about 50% of the album on tour in Eastern Europe and basically booked 2 weeks for tracking at home. The general idea was to get to the studio early in the morning, flesh out the song live, take a break and record live to Radar. We wanted to get 1st takes of the songs as soon as we could play them all the way through without fucking them up. I guess it’s kind of a safeguard against the inherent stiffness of the drum machine and a reaction against the trend of laptop dithering/cutting and pasting that sucks the life out of a lot of comtemporary music.

Lessons learned:
1) Recording guitars from across the room sounds pretty cool
2) Shirt off for vocals=better take, more comfort in Montreal summer heat
3) Pelincovac should be consumed while mixing
4) If you can’t get it in the 1st two takes, move on
5) Use mostly black keys and only a few of them any way and make them staccato or too long.
6) When you feel dehydrated, Pelincovac should be, again, consumed in huge swills

Who would you like to hear cover a night’s worth of your material? On the flip side, if you were to play an entire set of someone else’s songs, whose would you choose and/or enjoy playing the most?

Covers: Sparks
Covering us: Serbian hardcore band Disiplinie Kiscme

We’re always looking to uncover new favorite artists, are there any band(s)/record(s) that you could recommend to our readers?

Amsterdams from Bucharest
Kassetti from Prauge
HEALTH
Salem
AB4 from Romania/Italy
Pia Fraus and Popidiot and Mirabilia from Tallinn

You two seem to be on the road constantly! I’ve caught you three times in the last three months alone–being on the road so much, have you found any particular cities or venues that you especially look forward to playing? Are there any past tourdates that have been especially enjoyable or memorable?

Bucharest was probably my favorite city so far… It is full of crazy scary wholly beautiful ideas and everyone is so strong and energetic in making things happen, often times with very little means. I feel so lucky to witness the surge of change you feel immediately upon arrival there. It is a city that is very much alive; it couldn’t stand still for a second.

I’m really looking forward to everything that’s coming up for us – we’ve got dates in Beirut and Istanbul and Singapore that make me want to cry from joy. This is the fucking luckiest job in the whole world.

The internet has dramatically altered the way artists can reach an audience. With things like blogs/MySpace/etc, what are your thoughts on the power of the internet in terms of helping (or hurting) your music?

It truly has the power to both hurt and harm of course. I will be frank with these answers because I do not feel wholly conclusive on any of these ideas. One thing that I love about the Internet making our music available is that it has become available in places that otherwise it would not/could not. It is a dream-come-true for Dan and I to play in places like Russia, Serbia, Romania, (and upcoming shows in China and Vietnam) where our record does not have distribution and the only way for fans to build interest in us is on the web. I truly love that part.

Sadly, I also feel the availability of music on the internet makes for frenetic listeners which makes the art seem more disposable. I would love for everyone to hold the album in their hands – with all it’s pretty pictures – and blare it in their stereos in its entirety – at least on first listen, but I have had to learn to be less precious about my material. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I will always be earnest in my attempts to make good things in this fucked up world and maybe some of the rest of the world’s losers will find time to download it and find some, uh, kinship.

Buy: Handsome Furs – Face Control
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Myspace: Handsome Furs
MP3: Handsome Furs – “I’m Confused”