about
Fan Death is Marta Jaciubek-McKeever and Dandilion Wind Opaine. Dandilion and I first became friends in Vancouver around 2004; she had a "notorious" personality locally and perhaps due to our similarly unusual upbringings we hit it off right away (I immigrated from Poland to Canada when I was 12 and didn't speak English; Dandi lived with hippie parents in a log cabin near Alaska without running water until she also was 12.) Immediately we hoped to collaborate on a music project, however life intervened and within months Dandilion decided to move to Montreal and I to Brooklyn for the next 3 years. We did frequently cross paths as the cities are so close together. Initially we started working on Fan Death (then nameless) in my Brooklyn apartment while Dandi stayed here last summer, but shifted over to the internet cuz she had to go back Montreal. A few months later for visa reasons I had to return to Vancouver so Dandilion also decided to come back to the west coast so we could focus on Fan Death together. With Fan Death, we wanted to make music that recalled the greatest era of electronic pop; stuff like Depeche Mode, OMD, Alphaville, New Order, Human League, Soft Cell and some Pet Shop Boys. Great songs that happened to be electronic, not soulless repetitious club music that seems to dominate these days. Naturally we are drawn to melancholic, anthemic songs and since we write the songs acoustically it seemed natural to incorporate live strings on some trax.. Also much like the classic synth pop we hope to create many cinematic. Glamourous and unusual music videos that are actually worth watching the whole way through. Dandilion and her partner Szam produced 16 demo tracks at their home studio. Some songs were put up on myspace and we sent a few emails around but nothing much happened for months. then out of the blue various blogs, producers and magazines began showing a lot of interest in these demos. Anyways now we have a debut 12" on Erol Alkan's Phantasy Sounds label with a remix by Erol on the flipside. Currently we're finishing the last few songs for our full length and getting set to play our first live shows in the US and Europe plus sorting out label business and other tedious things. To backtrack; Dandilion and I have separately been doing music for a long time. She collaborated with Szam Findlay on her punk art/music project Dandi Wind that started in 2003. They put out 2 albums and numerous singles, toured all over the world. Additionally, Dandilion has directed many music videos for herself and other artists. When I was a teenager I fronted a band called Girl Nobody and released a couple of albums. I also fronted an all girl folk band called e.s.l. that released an album. The cellist and violin player from e.s.l. provided the string overdubs for many of the Fan Death songs.
