ZingZing

ZingZing is a project, a concept, a lifestyle. I am a visual artist, a musician and a writer. One activity seems to always feed another. Music is one of many ways to express myself, another way to communicate and to experiment with concepts.

My process is somewhat different from my musician friends' process. As a new media artist, I create soundscapes and videos, I html, I build websites, etc, so technology is an integral part of my creative process: I usually begin a project on the guitar or on the piano, and then I mix and add layers on my computer, add the lyrics at a later time. I need to hear the music hundreds of times before I can decide on the final lyrics, on the best way to convey the emotion I wish to convey. Then I re-teach myself the song in order to play it live. It's a natural process for me, but my friends think it's a little bit odd... my ambition is to touch the audience while maintaining the freedom to experiment with unusual structures, sounds, mixes and vocals.

I have lived in the big city, on a farm, in the suburbs, and now back in a mid-size city, in a "rougher" part of town where people still have a sense of community. My songs reflect the modest, but not so unimportant, moments of life in the city, with all of its complexities. The "modern hippie" in me deals with the modern-day contradictions, the changes in society, the environment and the usual thing of putting bread on the table. It's all very ordinary, but it can also be beautiful and very meaningful, because in the end, we are all in this together.

Here is my "official" description:

ZingZing brings a new media arts approach to
recording and performing, merging instruments and voices the way a video artist
would mix sound and images. She may know the “rules” of songwriting – but she
doesn’t feel bound by them.

Walking the fringe of the cityscape, ZingZing tells stories about trying to hang
on to a sense of who you are when the world is trying to draw you in to its oneway
parade. This non-conformity is reflected in her challenge to musical convention,
including her own classical training. With atypical chord changes,
idiosyncratic word choices and free use of instruments, it’s not business as
usual.

ZingZing’s vocals, part pixie, part Yoko, blur the line between lead and harmony
while contrasting with a range of instrumental beds. From the Ennio Morricone
inspired guitar of "Urban Mythology" to the distortion-saturated "Red Dots", loud
and quiet, soft and coarse, the songs' atmospherics open up an ethereal and
often eerie place, a soundstage lit as a waking dream.