Photos courtesy of barbez.com.
Barbez
The women of Brooklyn’s cabaret-punk band talk about bizarre gigs, theremins, and their album, 'Insignificance'
By Elizabeth Rhodes
Published: September 1st, 2005 | 1:34pm
“The stage makes me feel like a woman,” explains Ksenia Vidyaykina, lead singer of Brooklyn’s cabaret-punk sextet Barbez. “I put on my skirt and I know that I am a woman and I have the power. And I use it.”
Vidyaykina brought her haunting, mournful vocals and experimental dance to guitarist-songwriter Dan Kaufman’s band in 2000, shortly after she emigrated from Russia. Thereminist Pamelia Kurstin joined two years later. “I’m like one of the guys with Barbez,” Kurstin says.
Barbez combines cabaret, East European folk music, avant-garde classical, and pre-MTV punk. Their upcoming third album, Insignificance, was recorded, mixed, and co-produced by prominent New York engineer-producer Martin Bisi (Sonic Youth, Dresden Dolls). It includes covers of 20th-century classical pieces, traditional Russian folk songs, and Kaufman’s originals. The album’s release date is September 6, 2005, on Important Records. It also features Dan Coates on bass-palm pilot, Shahzad Ismaily on drums, and Danny Tunick on marimba.
Instead of resting at home before setting off for their fall U.S. tour, Kurstin and Vidyaykina chose to travel to Venice and India, respectively. From there, the two chose to do their interview with Venus via e-mail.
You two are major travelers. What have you been up to?
Pamelia Kurstin: First I went to Madrid and Barcelona to perform and give theremin lessons to a bunch of students. Then I went to Vienna to see the love of my life, give a theremin workshop, and do several performances.
Ksenia Vidyaykina: Solving the worst flood in [the] history of Mumbai where 300 people have died in landslides, taking some yoga and classical Indian dance classes, struggling to organize my life, and generally freaking out from everything that [I’ve seen] there.
What’s the meaning behind the title of your upcoming album, Insignificance?
KV: Most of this album came at a time when there was a lot of drama and unhappy frustration in Dan Kaufman’s and my life. My understanding of this title is [the] insignificance of your efforts. Everything is going to be the way it is going to be despite your good intentions, [and] sometimes things have no meaning at all.
How does Barbez go about writing songs?
KV: Dan writes the songs and the band arranges them. It is a collaborative process — anybody can make a suggestion or express an opinion about a particular song.
PK: Some things are improvised on the album but most of the parts are already set.
What have you been listening to lately?
KV: I love Russian folk songs, Japanese minimal electronic noise, Indian ragas, American rap, and everything that makes me see honesty and beauty.
You rarely hear of people playing theremins, which are electronic instruments played with no touch.
PK: I became interested in playing the theremin after I saw that documentary, Theremin: An Electronic Odyssey. I taught myself. I [have] relative pitch with good memory — relative pitch is the most important thing for theremin.
Ksenia, I read that you became interested in experimental dance after being told that your feet were too flat and your legs were too short to be a ballerina.
KV: Yes. I got introduced to Eastern philosophy and experimental theater in St. Petersburg, but dance was always something I longed to do, so from experimental theater I came to experimental dance.
Tell me about a memorable gig.
KV: There was one gig on tour that [got] canceled because the place we were supposed to play got shut down, but the kids that invited us there organized a show in the basement of their house. That was one of the more terrifying gigs for me because 15-year-olds showed up and were standing two feet away from me ready to bang their heads.
PK: I remember playing in the place that was like a David Lynch film, somewhere in Montana. The bar downstairs from the club had a Laundromat attached. It was only 1 p.m. and people there were smashed. We saw one man walk in with a Ziploc bag of uncooked meat, and he was trying to barter with the bartender for alcohol with it. Hilarious.
Do you work any extra jobs?
KV: I make costumes for Broadway [and sew] for commercials. I used to work at a costume shop that makes cartoon characters into life-size puppets, and one of my first jobs there was to make butts!
PK: I love giving haircuts — I do it for a six-pack of beer or a bottle of wine.
What’s up next for you and for Barbez?
KV: I have two dance projects I am working on now in New York, and then we are going on tour with Barbez, then back to India, then back on [a] European tour with Barbez. When that’s over, I will have children.
PK: I’m working on [my solo album]. I can’t make up my mind which direction I wanna go, and I am a horrible procrastinator. [Barbez is going on a] fall tour, and then a little tour in Europe. [It’s] exciting and always an adventure when we’re all in a vehicle together traveling, eating, yakking, getting annoyed with snoring or farting, wiping food off each other’s faces, and telling silent jokes.
For more information, check out barbez.com.
Issue #25
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