Enjoy the Silence

Electrelane‘s debut disc, Rock It to the Moon, was almost entirely instrumental, a maze of atmospheric tangents and swirling guitar countermelodies. Neither as virtuosic as King Crimson’s symphonic suites nor as urgently catchy as an average television drama theme, and too focused for ambient electronica or free jazz but not groove-oriented enough for new wave, Electrelane’s initial output fused wordless genres. Strikingly cinematic (an early single was aptly titled “Film Music,” and the group arranged Rock It tour sets around the work of director Jean-Luc Godard), it conjured bittersweet scenes, every soft-loud-soft cycle illustrating some star-crossed romance or spectacularly dashed ambition.

Given all that Electrelane accomplished without incorporating vocals, the all-female quartet from Brighton, England, marks a surprising evolution with the follow-up, The Power Out. It not only makes room for relatively poppy sing-along numbers but also proceeds directly to a stunningly harmonious gospel production that enlists the 12-member Chicago A Cappella choir. It’s as if an infant that only yesterday burbled “Mah-mah” suddenly cleared its throat and belted out an aria.

Initial shock aside, Electrelane’s latest release retains the group’s most appealing elements: experimental detours, propulsive pacing and intriguingly abrupt shifts. Guitarist and keyboardist Verity Susman’s charmingly askew voice is just another instrument, and her concise lines tell only part of every song’s story.

“Take That Bit Between Your Teeth,” for example, opens with a riff like a ringing alarm clock, builds to a turbulent climax and splinters into free-range-guitar territory with only the simple phrases I know you had it hard, Turn it up and You’re the man serving as lyrical landmarks. Erratically upbeat numbers spotlight saucy lines such as I saw her looking so fine and I bet I’d like your underwear while exploring the territory between euphoria and ennui.

“I find writing lyrics quite difficult,” Susman admits. “It doesn’t come naturally to me.”

For The Power Out, Susman wrote her melodies first, then searched for words that sounded euphonious with the hooks. At times, that meant singing in French or German, tongues that more accurately conveyed the music’s moods. Susman also incorporated existing works, such as Siegfried Sassoon’s “A Letter Home” and 16th-century Spanish poet Juan Boscon’s “Oh Sombra!” “This Deed,” the album’s bleakest piece, draws part of its inscrutable text from Friedrich Nietzsche’s The Gay Science.

This combination of high-art wordsmiths and high-concept compositions can be intimidatingly dense. Susman comes from a classical background, having started piano lessons at age 5. Until meeting drummer Emma Gaze, who introduced her to Pulp and My Bloody Valentine at age 17, she hadn’t heard or played much rock music. And the group’s newest member, bassist Ros Murray, is unlikely to tether Electrelane to blues-based grit. In January 2004, Murray’s former band, Lesbo Pig, played a set that, according to an event brochure, took place “next to a separatist curtain — a homemade fantasy of fake differentiation — made from duvet covers.”

Still, Electrelane is no stuffy museum installment. Its sweaty live shows supply the speaker-shredding volume and saucy personality its albums obscure. Onstage, Electrelane’s members seem irked, scowling during solos and swatting errant locks of hair from their faces with detached disdain. They’re still pleasant between songs, quipping with the crowd and thanking their fans with surprise-award-winner sincerity, but the untapped-on-disc intensity of the group’s instrumentals makes every performance riveting.

“We’re always trying to get a live sound on record, but we’ve never really achieved it,” Susman says. She expects the group’s next release will come closer to this elusive goal thanks to adequate road-testing. Several songs from the in-progress album have already become set-list staples.

“With the last album, we hadn’t played any of the songs live before we recorded them,” Susman says. “This time, we’ll have that energy and that state of mind.”

Then again, Electrelane might end up ditching its previewed prospects. It created demos of vocal tracks for Rock It but discarded them after deciding that lyrics were an unnecessary distraction. Though pleased with The Power Out, Susman might mute herself on the next disc.

“I don’t think there will be many lyrics, and I don’t know if we’ll use other people’s words, because we’ve already done that bit,” Susman says. “I’m surprised how much weight critics gave to the lyrics. I didn’t feel that the vocals and lyrics were important enough to warrant half of the reviews. We still think of ourselves as an instrumental band.”