Prototype Issue
Sexy Beats: The Sultry Sound of Bitter:Sweet
By Phat X. Chiem
(page 1 of 1)Shana Halligan, the singing half of trip-hop duo Bitter:Sweet, could easily pass for a Bond Girl. She’s got the lithe figure, luscious brunette locks and killer legs. More important, she’s got the music.
On their debut album, The Mating Game, Halligan and producing partner Kiran Shahani (formerly of Supreme Beings of Leisure) execute the kind of sexy-cool loungey electronic music that you can imagine playing in the background as secret agent man makes one of his inevitable romantic conquests. Not surprisingly, Bitter:Sweet’s seductive songs have appeared in the feature film The Devil Wears Prada and HBO’s Entourage. You’ll be hearing a lot more from the LA-based musicians as they prepare for a national tour this fall in support of a second release, The Remix Game, featuring reworkings of their songs by Thievery Corporation, Nicola Conte, Fort Knox Five and others.
You two got together through an ad. That sounds like a very LA story. Halligan: He put out a Craigslist ad and I answered it. It was the only ad I ever answered. It was a very strange time in my life. I really wanted to do something completely out of my world and the world that I’ve worked in the past.
Did you guys really mesh on the same sound? Shahani: Yeah, definitely. Halligan: I was doing much more singer-songwriter stuff. Kiran comes from that electronic world. When I first got to the studio, he played me this track, and I was like, “Let me just sing over it right now. I just want to show you this is where my heart is.” I could tell right away that it was going to be a good partnership.
So you weren’t trying to pigeon-hole yourselves into any musical genre? You were saying, “This sounds really sexy and sultry, let’s go with this.” Halligan: We weren’t thinking about what’s going to sell, what’s cool or what’s not. We were honestly just making cool music we like.
How does a typical song come together? Shahani: First, we come up with a little beat or a hooky thing, like a horn line or a cool string line. Then we’ll just start building from there. She’ll take it and write the lyrics and melody and then we both sit down together and just rehearse around that.
There was no discussion about bringing in other band members to mix up the sound a little? Shahani: I mean, I’d been working with so many other people. It was so nice to just have her and I. We actually think a lot alike. It’s been really good. Halligan: I always used to write songs by myself and have some producer come in and make it what they wanted it to be. And they were just stripping it of all its integrity. …Now, it’s so cool because he’s so good at the beats and the programming; I get to just get lost in my melodies and we know exactly what we want by the end of the day.
Shana, you have this on-stage persona that’s very sexy, maybe even naughty. Where does that come from? Halligan: I’ve been that way my whole life. I’ve used it as a way of freedom. Being a woman and using it to be sexually connected and all that stuff. It’s great because I get to bring everything I have absolutely experienced and been influenced by into the music. It’s so funny because girls e-mail us and tell us how liberating it is.
How does it feel to have people like Thievery Corporation remixing your songs? Halligan: It’s an honor. I’ve been listening to their music for so long. To have them as peers now, it feels really amazing.
You guys seem to be gathering some momentum with the album coming out, the tour and bigger and bigger shows. Is any of it surprising? Shahani: Oh, it’s a shock. Halligan: It happened really quickly because we met, we started working and within four or five months we were signed and we had to finish our record. It’s been awesome and amazing.
To listen, visit www.bittersweetmusic.com.
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