With Gay Abandon Visit... Teen Sleuth!

Photo by Jocelyn Michel

Taking the stage at Montreal's Fringe Festival on Friday June 11^th 2010, Teen Sleuth and the Freed Cyborg Choir is a multi-faceted musical experience not to be missed.

Debuting last year at the St. Ambroise Montreal Fringe Festival, Teen Sleuth and the Freed Cyborg Choir is back, armed with their debut EP. Their EP will also be available as a limited edition pop-up version, to help simulate the Teen Sleuth “experience” at home. The live experience, self-described as an “ope-raw!” features a 12 piece band, including a full string section, as well as dancers, theatric visuals and projections, dream-like costumes and puppetry. The many aspects of their live performance illustrates the capacious nature of their sound. Their performance will be done in the open- air, outside, adding to the heightened sensory journey of their romantic rockouts.

I had the chance to catch up with two of the main teen sleuths, Ellen Smallwood – creative director, co-musical director/arranger and main vocalist,  and Aleks Schürmer – band leader, co-musical director/arranger and keyboardist/vocalist. Inspired by Nancy Drew, cyborgs, post-humans, post-mammals and ghosts, Teen Sleuth and the Freed Cyborg Choir is guaranteed to leave you pining for more of their incredibly artistic, creative storytelling.

Click here for the Facebook info for their performance on Friday June 11^th.

With Gay Abandon: Here we are on CJLO 1690 AM, CJLO.com. And we are with two, maybe they could be teen detectives, we will find out. I am going to ask you to introduce yourselves...

Teen Sleuth Ellen: Hi I'm Ellen, I'm the singer and one of the songwriters of Teen Sleuth and the Freed Cyborg Choir.

Teen Sleuth Aleks: Hi, I'm Aleks and I do the arrangements for said show, and I play keyboards, and also sing sometimes...

TSE: Slash all the time... [laughs]

TSA: [laughs]

WGA: Amazing... Okay, you have a pretty interesting name, can you tell me about that?

TSE: It's true. Well we've kinda decided that we are doing sort of two different things here. We kinda just call ourselves Teen Sleuth but we have a multi-disciplinary show as well, that is a combination of theatrics, dance, and projections and puppets, and so kind of from now on when we are going to be doing that show, which we call our "Ope-rah", we are going to be going as Teen Sleuth and the Freed Cyborg Choir, but umm, as we are moving forward we are kinda focusing more on being a band, Teen Sleuth, so we are kinda distinguishing ourselves like that, but of course it is based on, you know, the lovely feminist folk hero, Nancy Drew, the original teen sleuth.

WGA: Nice...

TSE: Fearless!

WGA: Amazing! That is an interesting concept that you have two versions, almost, depending on how elaborate...

TSE: Totally. Well it wasn't so much distinguished like that at first but then I guess just through a process of learning by doing, and seeing all of the aspects at every show took into account, we kind of realized that in some instances it's fun to have all of that stuff in the “Ope-rah”, and have all of the fun that goes on there, but in another way we want to be able to do things where it's more just music stuff as well, so there we're cool with, you know, being Teen Sleuth. And it's easier to remember anyway. [laughs] You know I'm fighting... I wish I could get...

TSA: It's a lot to say.

TSE: Yeah, teensleuth.com, wish we could own it, we can't. Someone else's got that.

WGA: Somebody else does?

TSE: A photoblog, yes.

WGA: No!

TSE: And they never use it. They never use it and they have the Myspace, and they just randomly upload a photo, and I'm like “don't you know the pain you've caused me on a daily basis?” Like “I want your domain name” [laughs]. But it's the Freed Cyborg Choir, that's a good time too.

WGA: Yeah I actually revealed that name to another musician, and she was stoked...

TSE: Oh yeah? Nice.

WGA: ...to say the least, she was like “whoa! That sounds amazing! I need to hear it!” and I was like “you need to hear it.”

TSE: Yeah. That's what I like to hear.

WGA: So tell me a little bit about what would one expect at a live Teen Sleuth experience?

TSE: The Teen Sleuth experience. Okay well, the new kinda thing that we're launching next Friday is actually is music and projections, but the projections are sort of featuring the elements of our opera, so the puppets, the costumes and the dance, and it sort of taking these and juxtaposing them into little storybook worlds that Frances McKenzie, our sort of art guru, makes so it's gonna be pretty intense. I'm pretty excited. So it's like going to see a band but all of the music is going to be illustrated at all times, so..

WGA: That's amazing.

TSA: It's a whole lot of crazy.

TSE: A whole lot of crazy going on.

WGA: Aleks, can you tell me a little bit about the musical aspect?

TSA: Yeah... ummm... Honestly, it's different every time, something that's... I don't like to say that, but it's organic, like I think that I don't like when I see other bands when it sounds like the CD at the show.

WGA: Mmhmm definitely.

TSA: And that's not that interesting 'cause to be honest it's cheaper and probably a lot more comfortable to be at your house and just listen to a CD. So every time we get together, if it's like not very nice out, or we're tired, or had a bad day, it sounds different than if we're super excited and it's really nice out, and you know something cool just happened.

WGA: That's awesome, that's great, that's a cool sort of thing to think about though, when you're like...

TSA: I think it's something that makes it more interesting for us because it's been now sort of two years of Teen Sleuth, with a lot of the same music so at some point, you know, we've done it that way before. We've done it in so many different formations too and even I wasn't there at the beginning, I mean I was there, but I wasn't in it... [laughs] And you know it was like a lot smaller and it was more, I don't even know, like experimental, kind of, and it had a phase that I am not entirely proud of that our slightly Broadway-ish overtone... [laughs]

TSE: Hey! We were just coming of age, you know.

TSA: But we ironed it all out.

TSE: We were trying to figure it out.

TSA: But I mean I think that the music the stuff that Ellen comes up with is so... I don't even know what kind of music it is, and it references so many different things, and then, you know, I put my own kind of spin on it, and you know make little comical references to this indie band, or like one of the songs probably has what some of the wankiest classical orchestrations possible [laughs], and so, over time trying to like make it sound like one band is some that is, that we've like finally done. [laughs]

WGA: Awesome.

TSE: I think also that recording this EP has really kind of like helped us think a lot about what our sound recorded is gonna be, what a Teen Sleuth recording sounds like, so it was kind of like a long winter of sort of working that out but...

TSA: Very very long.

TSE: Very long winter, but it's summer now, so we're ready.

WGA: So are you ready to launch the Teen Sleuth At Home experience?

TSE: Yeah, yes.

[all laugh]

WGA: The port-a-Teen Sleuth.

TSE: Totally, and it's under the stars, and our EP is called Where The Animals Chase The Stars, so we're excited that it is going to be an outside launch and...

WGA: Yeah.

TSE: ...hopefully the weather is gonna be awesome.

TSA: I mean honestly, I don't even care if it rains, as long as we can still do the show. [laughs]

WGA: Yeah.

TSE: Well apparently there's...

TSA: ...Put up a little tent for us...

TSE: ...A rain location.

TSA: Everyone else can get wet.

TSE: Yeah.

TSA: They will anyway.

WGA: And so that's part of the Fringe right?

TSE: It's part of the Fringe. It's being put on by Indyish, we're co-presenting it with them, and so it's the Indyish Fringe Mess, and so there's gonna be other stuff going on, and other bands: Reversing Falls, and David Simard, who plays with us, and Brie Nelson And Her Other Men, and Willow Rutherford from Toronto, and...

TSA: And a bunch of others...

TSE: And a bunch of other stuff. [laughs]

WGA: And will that be your official EP release as well?

TSE: Yah, that's the official one. I mean, who knows what we'll do after that, but for now this is... You come and you can you can get a copy, and you can even order a special edition pop-up version if you so choose.

WGA: Oooooh! A pop-up version! That would be the real take-home experience!

TSE: Yeah, well that's for hours of pop-up fun in your own environment.

TSA: It's for the true fans really.

[laughs]

WGA: Yeah no, that sounds it. Now how would people get a hold of you?

TSE: Get a hold of us?

WGA: Yeah!

TSE: Uh...

WGA: My listeners!

TSA: You can find Ellen in the alley on St Laurent very often!

WGA: Oh pishaw!

TSE: Yeah well that's where we practice!

TSA: She in fact lives in an alley.

TSE: Yeah, and we practice in an alley, we're being real with you.

[all laugh]

TSE: Well, you can go to our myspace, which is myspace.com/teensleuthfreedcyborgchoir or our website, teensleuthfreedcyborgchoir.com.