The Revelation of Jana

"When I started writing my own songs I never really had the intention of doing shows," Hunter says. "And even now I question whether or not I want to perform live or release records. When I first started thinking about it, I was into the Residents and was really, really excited by the idea of obscurity." But it's a little late for that, isn't it? There were all those times she played live. "I still kind of believe in it; it's just not really so much of a possibility anymore because enough people have heard the stuff that it's no longer completely obscure." So she plays but she has reservations. "I feel like I really have to put everything into these songs that can be put into them. They have to come off really well because I don't want them to be half-assed. The songs are so personal, they have to be really convincing."

To help her with the doubts, she has begun playing live with a new collaborator, the multi-instrumentalist Simeon Yurek. On stage, Yurek flits from chord organs to guitars to toy pianos to drums as if he can't decide which one he wants to play. "He plays a lot of instruments, but he's never been trained on anything," Hunter says. "He's really good at finding textures and sounds."

But more important, he's less precious about the songs and, well, everything. "He looks weird all the time, he talks weird all the time, and unless it costs him his job, he just doesn't care," she says, adding that his abandon balances her perfectionism. And to make the experience even less conventional, they throw in some surprises. "On a couple songs, Simeon doesn't even play instruments live," Hunter explains. "It's all backing tracks bounced down to a MiniDisc. And since we were going to be doing that anyway, I also have all this other stuff that I've been collecting for years like field recordings, thrift store tape finds, and little snippets of songs that I decided could be used. I just really wanted to get away from being in a rock band."

She's succeeded; her music is not at all like a rock band's. In fact, there's really no easy way to describe it. Hunter agrees. "I thought it would be great if I could have an artist statement, but I don't think I could do that," she says. "There's just so much about it that I've never really tried to articulate." This writer's happy to try to oblige. How about this: "I wanted to remain as obscure as possible…" Hunter laughs at the suggestion. "And it didn't really work out? Maybe."