On the downlow

Jenn Mierau stitches the sound and portraiture on her eerie, intimate EP, Hush

Making music can be a disarming, deeply personal experience: opening yourself up, laying it all out in a studio, letting it go and getting it out to strangers who may well tear your heartfelt work to shreds. This process is all the more personal when you do just about all the work yourself, from beatmaking, playing bass, guitar, keys and singing, and bringing it all together harmoniously as a producer. This is what Montreal artist Jenn Mierau has done. But Mierau takes the DIY ethic to greater proportions, or rather to about two feet by two feet. “This was a brilliant idea,” Mierau recalls thinking as she worked away. “I feel I’m a little crazy!”  She refers to her 14,400-stitch rug-hooked self-portrait she made for the cover of her EP. She confesses it took her longer than it should have, because she took pictures of it at every significant stage to make a time-lapse video.

Hush is altogether dark yet light, eerie yet intimate, quiet yet very danceable. Mierau’s mix of trip hop and electro pop, layered vocals and techno touches combines with a soft backdrop of head-bobbing beats. Adding to Mierau’s sound is her take on the Cure’s “Lovesong,” from their album Disintegration. “It was the first cover I ever did, and I pushed myself not to make it at all like the orig­inal.”

This Edmonton native cut her teeth in Toronto, but built up her production skills and solo work in Montreal. Shepherding Mierau through the grassy fields of production were producers such as Matt DeMatteo, Gavin Brown, Hollis P. Monro and Ryan Hemsworth, who is part of a Montreal label called the Villa. She also collaborated with some Villa artists, an experience that helped her to craft her EP. “I learned so much from those people and I couldn’t have produced this album without the things I learned from them, as well as their encouragement.” ■

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