Another girl?

The artful pop of Lynne Kellman

by Brett Milano

It was the sort of gig that usually gets filed under the heading of paying one's dues. Lynne Kellman, the Canadian songwriter who performs as Another Girl, was doing the first night of a month-long residency at the Kendall Café in Cambridge last month. Her music is the kind of quirky/ cerebral pop that often gets welcomed in these parts, so if word about her album (In the Galaxy, RCA) had gotten out, there might have been a few handfuls of listeners. Not this night, however, since her inaugural show coincided with the season's first ice storm. There were literally as many people on stage -- five, including the soundman -- as there were in the audience. They went through the full set anyway, with Kellman noting between songs, "It's okay, we've played to nobody before."

Two days later at Cambridge's 1369 Coffeehouse she elaborated: "I'm just enjoying the chance to play. Playing live is still a new and different thing. First I was in the studio for so long, then I was dealing with the lawyers, contracts, and A&R guys."

Kellman, it seems, is doing everything it takes not to live up to her name -- not to be just another girl with another good debut album. Leaving her home in the Vancouver area, she's based herself in Newport, where she works with a Boston manager and a locally recruited band (drummer Kristoffer Branco, bassist Chris Carlson, and former Sighs guitarist Matthew Cullen). She recently commuted to weekly gigs in New York, Northampton, and Cambridge.

It would be unfortunate if In the Galaxy got lost in the major-label shuffle. It's an inventive, multi-textured album that maintains its pop appeal while throwing frequent left curves into the writing and arrangement. Kellman did most of the singing and playing in her home studio, bringing in outside help only to play drums and remix. Her homemade soundscapes range from big walls of chords to eerie string-driven passages, where she's featured on violin as well as the usual rock-band instruments. At the Kendall the songs were stripped back to acoustic basics, but the vocal dynamics kept things out of the ordinary. Comparisons with Liz Phair or early Tracy Bonham wouldn't be amiss, though Kellman is less a straightforward popster than either. If there's going to be an emotional shift in her songs, she's more apt to suggest it in the music than spell it out in the lyrics.

You can hear a lot of quiet determination in Kellman when she discusses her music. Her original performing name was Super Girl; she chose the current self-depreciating moniker for fear that DC Comics would take action ("I didn't want to be Sued Girl"). She was part of a popular Vancouver band, the Water Walk, before deciding she could do a better job on her own. "That's why I'm fine with being on a major label now. I'd been in the studio with a talented band who got signed because they were distinct, and then they got pressured to have hits. When I started my album, there was nothing on the radio that I thought was any good, and I thought I could do better. I got the equipment and set up a studio, and I could go anywhere on guitar because I didn't really know how to play it. That's total freedom. When I recorded `Anything for You,' I wanted the guitar to sound like fire, so I cranked everything up into the red. The engineers would never have let that happen, but when they heard the tape, they said, `How did you do that?' And the answer is that I did it all wrong, then bounced it to a ghetto blaster."

Her songwriting formula comes down to a combination of classical training, maverick attitude, and a chaotic personal life. "Yeah, my life actually changes as much as it sounds -- I can't write a song about something I just made up. That's not in me. The way they come out is just the way I look at things; I think way too much and my brain doesn't shut off sometimes. I studied classical music and I like Beethoven, anything that moves me in a dark way. Song structure is important -- to go somewhere you didn't expect but not gratuitously, not just for the sake of being quirky."

Kellman hasn't had much time to explore the local scene yet, though she has figured out that people are nicer here than they were at home. "I was amazed when I did auditions, how helpful and supportive the musicians are of each other. Vancouver's a small music community and a pretty vicious one, especially when somebody gets signed and everybody else gets jealous. When I was making the album, I'd hear a new horror story about me every time I went out -- and I hardly even left my house. It's amazing what you can stir up just by going out to buy milk."

Another Girl will perform at the Century Lounge on Thursday, January 29 with Mistle Thrush and the John St. Porch Band.