by RUPERT BOTTENBERG

What with their use of tape loops, Teddy Ruxpins and trash-can technology, Toronto duo FemBots got more attention for the comical novelty of their "junk-rock" approach than for their bleak, backwoods balladry. Their second CD Small Town Murder Scene sees them losing a lot of the found instrumentation in favour of real, live folks - and real, live songs.

"The junk-rock tape-loop approach was just a way for us to break out of our old rock-band habits," says FemBot Dave MacKinnon, "and try to have a range and scope beyond what we could physically play as a duo. But even that wasn’t a conscious decision, just something that evolved. Also, the junk, like all junk, finally fell apart - during the middle of a show. So really we had no choice.

"The new record still has junk-rock elements to it, but they’ve moved into the background. We wanted people to pay attention to the songs, not the novelty of what was used to create them."

To that end, MacKinnon and fellow FemBot Brian Poirier enlisted violinist Julie Penner (an associate of Bob Wiseman), Hummer’s Mark Hanson on drums and the Weakerthan’s Jason Tait on "vibraphone, xylophone, bowed saw, drums and just about anything else he can get his hands on."

"The first record was an experiment in recording as songwriting. We built the songs from the ground up in the studio and the final result went on the record, Mucho Cuidado. Those songs are more like sketches. For this record, we tried the songs out a bunch of different ways, played them live, lived with them for a while and let them fully develop."

FemBots have also branched out to film, theatre and TV work, as well as a long-awaited cartoon from animator Tom Gravestock. "Tom’s film is, I hope, still in the works. It’s a heist movie about a gang of bank-robbing ambulance drivers. Tom makes his living animating TV commercials in the U.K., and his film gets worked on between jobs. We wrote some sketches and theme music for him but he’s a very busy guy so it’s been slow going. It almost makes me wish for another recession so he’ll have some time to finish the film. :

With Cooper Thomson at Casa del Popolo,
Friday, March 7, 9pm, $6

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