Dandi Wind Trying To Bait The Scenesters

04/14/05 3:00pm

by Brian Wong (CHARTattack)

Wait. A successful Canadian electro-punk project not hiding out in sexy Berlin or Montreal?

Amazing.

Part visual and performance artists, part feisty beat-happy duo, Vancouver's Dandi Wind creeped into the top 20 of the nation's campus airplay charts early this year with their debut offering Bait The Traps.

"It was totally surprising," laughs vocalist Dandelion Wind Opaine, the art-schooled vocalist better known as Dandi Wind, whose tiny frame and cute-as-a-button cheerfulness seriously contrasts her outlandish performances and banshee vocal style

"And it was just an EP, so to have it chart is really exciting."

"We didn't think it would do anything," adds Szam Findlay, Wind's longtime friend, collaborator and techno wizard. "[The EP] was basically just something to sell when we played live, but the label [Bongo Beat] sent it to stations and they played it, so it's great."

Over the course of Bait The Traps' six tracks, the pair excitingly mash up new wave synths with ragga-tribal beats, punk growls and video game techno. They're anguished and accessible songs inspired by uninspiring jobs and their dismal Vancouver neighbourhood.

"We live in a nice building, but it's surrounded by factories," explains Wind. "There was a chicken slaughtering factory a couple blocks up and right behind our building is a rendering plant where they grind up dead animals and turn them into glue. And then there are train tracks and prostitutes, so it's pretty depressing."

The trail of dead animals will continue with Concrete Igloo, Dandi Wind's full-length release slated for an early summer release. Set to contain a dozen songs and a DVD of videos for the duo to practice their performance art chops, the disc is named after Adams Igloo, a renowned roadside wildlife museum in the B.C. interior near where Wind grew up. But now that Wind has relocated to big city Vancouver, where bands like The Pink Mountaintops, their offshoot Black Mountain and campy duo Canned Hamm are trying to inject some excitement into the music scene, it's still difficult to recruit followers.

"It's hard to get people out to shows to see local stuff," Wind says. "The city isn't particularly a youthful city, because it's so expensive to live there and there are hardly any venues for all-ages shows."

"There's a bunch of cool people doing new stuff," adds Findlay, citing Blim Gallery, a visual art and music venue as an example. "But there's not enough people supporting the cool stuff."

On the other hand, support for bands like Le Tigre and Les Georges Leningrad — who share Dandi Wind's penchant for danceable, art-damaged pop — is growing.

"I've had a keyboard since I was 10 and it was definitely not cool to have it when Nirvana was popular," says Findlay, who grew up on an '80s electronic diet of Jean-Michel Jarre and Skinny Puppy. "So it's better to be doing this now than 10 years ago."

Dandi Wind's Canadian dates:
April 14 Kingston, ON @ Elixir (w/Hidden Cameras)
April 16 Ottawa, ON @ Barrymore's (w/Hidden Cameras)
April 21 Hamilton, ON @ Casbah (w/Hidden Cameras)
May 18 Montreal, QC @ Sapphire (w/Collapsing Opposites)
June 2 Toronto, ON @ Power Plant