Island girl
Erase Errata's Jenny Hoyston finds solo paradise.
By Jimmy Draper
NO MATTER HOW
tough it may be to step into the solo spotlight, it's even tougher
when you're already in one of today's most prominent Bay Area bands,
and many of your fans – for whatever reason – are expecting
you to sex them up. Just ask Jenny Hoyston.
"A lot of people
are just waiting for Peaches," the Erase Errata singer-trumpeter
says, laughing dryly at the absurd notion of her breaking out a
stage persona akin to Berlin's booty-beat mistress. After all, Paradise
Island – the lo-fi, low-key electronic and folk project of
which she's the sole voice and visionary – could pass as the
intimate antithesis of the '80s-style, bump 'n' grind debauchery
embraced by the likes of Peaches and so many other trend-chasing
musicians of late. "So if anybody likes this stuff besides
me," she continues self-deprecatingly, "I'm just amazed."
We're sitting in the
living-turned-recording room of Hoyston's storybook-cute Oakland
house to discuss her solo music, and our conversation has inevitably
turned to the expectations placed on a singer of an established
band when she goes it alone. Still, considering how overwhelming
such outside pressures can be, Hoyston seems surprisingly comfortable
with the fact that many fans of Erase Errata's no wave rock might
not appreciate what transpires when she's left to her own devices.
"I just don't feel
like I have to be supernice or live up to anyone's expectations.
That's the good thing about this – I can be myself," she
says. "It's like when Kid Rock did that duet with Sheryl Crow,
and he actually sang. Everyone was like, 'Oh my god!' 'cause he
totally sounded like Ronnie Van Zandt singing some old ballad. People
had never seen him explore that part of himself before."
With Paradise Island,
the Texas-via-Michigan native forgoes the rock format of Erase Errata
and California Lightning – her duo with E.E. drummer Bianca
Sparta – for a far more introspective, musically unpredictable
approach to recording. Incorporating such jarring juxtapositions
as ukulele-laden gospel numbers and Suicide-al noise aberrations
next to spacey instrumentals and country folk dirges à la
Buffy Sainte-Marie, the project finds Hoyston indulging in an impressively
eclectic multitude of songwriting styles.
"Who wants to listen
to the same thing all day?" she reasons. "I hate genres,
and I feel like you shoot yourself in the foot as an artist [if
you follow them]. My mind is open to infinite possibilities and
musical and lyrical combinations, and my songs are totally like
weird sound experimentations – a freeing of form."
It's unsurprising, then,
that Hoyston's excellent if erratic Lines Are Infinitely Fine
full-length and Get Up EP – both released earlier this
year on Dim Mak and culled from four-track recordings made since
2000 – are dictated by mood, not by structure or style. So
while songs like "Gold Digger" and "Mind Wash"
lurch menacingly and other tracks, such as the strummed-and-sung
"We Ate Until We Ate It All" and "Get Up," could
pass for Will Oldham hymns, it's the overwhelming sense of unease
permeating the music that makes Paradise Island such a uniquely
compelling and discomforting experience. That's not to say she isn't
recording songs of strange, disorienting beauty, but, as Hoyston
explains, "it's not coming from a place that would usually
lead you there."
The recordings reward
patient listeners, and indeed, many of these atmospheric soundscapes
need to sink into the subconscious before fully revealing their
charms. Yet Hoyston's somber live shows can be even more demanding.
Though she's put on truly moving performances with little more than
a ukulele and drum machine, Hoyston – who's sometimes accompanied
by Lisa Charbonneau, her girlfriend and "part-time" Paradise
Island collaborator – has also been known to leave audiences
frustrated with her occasionally awkward rambling and early departures
from the stage.
"I've gotten really
nervous onstage," she allows. "I've quit [some shows]
'cause I'm just like, 'People hate it. This is dumb. I'm just gonna
go home.' But it's just me being an idiot, because I forget it's
not the kind of music that people jump up and down to and ram into
each other and yell. It's not like Erase Errata, and I'm really
used to that constant validation of the dancing and the partying
all around us."
It's understandable,
considering it's the first time Hoyston has released her home solo
recordings, that it might take some time for her to adjust to her
music's public reception. Still, regardless of whether listeners
fully embrace Paradise Island, she's happy she's decided to share
this part of herself. "It was almost like an experiment to
release this stuff and see what happens," she says. "This
is my mad scientist project. It's not supposed to be popular. It's
not supposed to be critically acclaimed. It's not supposed to be
formulaic. It's just what it is – my obsession."
Paradise Island
plays Sun/5, 9 p.m., Bottom of the Hill, 1233 17th St., S.F. $8.
(415) 621-4455.
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