Vancouver Electro-pop Duo Love & Electrik can’t Stop the Music

Credit: Skot Deeming

Roxy Aiston of Vancouver’s Love & Electrik (pictured here in Winnipeg in 2009) plays Megahurtz at W2 Storyeum Nov. 13.

Vancouver band Love & Electrik might finish recording their new songs—if only they weren’t so busy playing shows like Saturday’s audio/visual event MegaHurtz.

In the last year and a half, Love & Electrik have been creating a buzz with performances of slinky electro-pop numbers like “Sex Video” and a cover of Vanity 6’s “Nasty Girl”. But there’s not much by way of finished recordings to take home or download.

One reason is that the band can’t stop saying “yes” to shows, including this coming Saturday’s MegaHurtz at W2 Storyeum. The November 13 Vancouver audio/visual event features 12 acts, including Black Milk and Felix Cartel, in two rooms. Proceeds from the event will support W2’s efforts to build an inner-city media centre for Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.

“We are planning on cutting down on local shows to spend more time to focus on finishing some songs,” says Kevin Mah, Love & Electrik’s resident keyboardist, tech-head and Phil Collins fan (he takes lead vocals on a cover of the MOR balladeer’s “In the Air Tonight”).

Most of the work is being done in the off-Main apartment Mah shares with L&E lead vocalist Roxy Aiston. The apartment even has its own vocal booth.

“It’s kind of a lucky thing, I ran into a friend and helped him build a new one and gave me the old one,” says Mah. “It looks like drywall box with foam on the inside. It’s kind of unfinished. It’s just an open box right now—we’re missing the last piece, a door.”

Recording at home may not lead to a photo feature in Dwell but it does allow Mah and Aiston the luxury of taking their time. They are “working on a lot of music,” says Mah, some of which may soon have its premiere on the group’s MySpace page.

The new Love & Electrik won’t necessarily sound like the provocative ’80s New Wave of previous tracks, like “Sex Video.” Those early recordings were “kind of a trial for us,” says Mah.

“Now I think we have other songs that represent us more. With the new style, we’re tapping into indie sounds, a bit of New Wave, Italo-disco. Pop is still in the forefront, but with a little bit less of the retro-funk we were doing when we started. The new stuff is still retro and very synth-based but maybe more serious and less jokey.”

The group’s enforced hibernation might disappoint anyone whose seen Aiston shake her long tresses onstage to “Nasty Girl,” and Mah break out the Vocoder for “In the Air Tonight.” But even Love & Electrik can’t live off “Sex Video” and ’80s cover songs forever.