Dave Chamberlain

Somewhere between Montgomery and Mobile, Alabama, a van hurtles towards New Orleans. There's no rock 'n' roll in here, man, this van carries Adult., the married couple of Nicola Kuperis and Adam Lee Miller, who, like myriad others playing modernized hybrid electro music, have begun to break away from the world of club kids and hipster magazines.

Though space has been devoted to the pair in numerous European electronic music magazines, only now upon the release of Adult.'s second full-length record, "Anxiety Always" (on their own label, Ersatz Records), has a larger American audience caught on. "A lot of that," says Kuperis, "is because there's such a huge indie-rock scene, which really dominates the U.S. And within the past few years, that kind of territory has changed--a lot of people have become more open to electronic music. It's like anything goes. As long as it's good it doesn't matter."

With "Anxiety Always," Adult. finds itself in an unusual position: though the duo released its first record, "Resuscitation," two years ago, that record was composed of previously released singles, thereby making "Anxiety Always" almost a debut album. "It totally feels like our first record," says Kuperis. "But I feel really happy with the direction we're going, and I think--just through years of playing lots of live shows and releasing like a handful of twelves--we've just been going through a natural evolution as a band."

Evolution? Yes. But don't think that Adult. has changed its take on pulsing electro beats, cold and angular vocals or the unsettling sense of drum-box doom that saturates its music. Nor has the duo's art-school flippancy done anything but become more extreme: where earlier tracks traveled channels of the extremely dark ("Nausea") or mundane ("Dispassionate Furniture (Re-Upholstered)"), "Anxiety" carries its thematic punch with songs like "Glue Your Eyelids Together," "Nervous (Wreck)" and "Kick in the Shin." And if anything, there's a minimization of the music, a stylistic shift away from Suicide and closer to--but not on top of--the likes of Front 242.

"Obviously," begins Kuperis, "when you're just starting out in a band, there is a certain rawness that you can never go back and get. On this album we tried to make it even a little more spare than some of the past record."

The two are based in Detroit, making them and Ersatz Records quite the oddball in a city where electro plays a distant third (even on the hipster meter) to garage rock and more hardcore club-oriented techno. Their status as odd ducks does not go unnoticed by Adult. "We're like the weirdos of Detroit," quips Kuperis. "But the really good thing about Detroit is that there is so much great music that comes out of it. People from Detroit just love music. And they really appreciate good music."

But why, of all cities, is Detroit such an epicenter? "Because there's nothing else to do in Detroit. There's not a lot of distraction. And it's really cheap to live there. I think some people [in larger cities] maybe make sacrifices in their music, they make compromises, because they've got to put a roof over their heads and you've got to eat. Whereas in Detroit, you kind of do whatever the fuck you want, and the cost of living is so low, you don't have to make sacrifices."

Kuperis and Miller started Ersatz Records (which has released singles by like-minded artists Magas and Le Car) in 1995, and the two started playing as Adult. in 1997. A year later, the two married. Since last year, both have dropped their day jobs and work full-time on the label and band, which would seem to put them on a dangerous tightrope of balancing marriage and work. "People always say that," notes Kuperis, "and you know somehow we're just really on the same page. So it's not an issue for us."

She continues. "It's kind of like some people who are together have separate jobs, do different things. A lot of times people tend to hate their job, so you come home from work and talk to your significant other about how shitty your job was that day, and that's one thing that's really good for us: we love what we do. Obviously, there are some really hard things and it is pretty stressful, when it comes down to it, we love what we're doing."

Three years ago, in an interview with Finnish electronic music magazine PhinnWeb, the two noted that they hoped the then-current craze of electro-trash "dies soon and resurrects itself into electro pop." So now, three years later, the likes of Fischerspooner and Tiga are storming through the States with Europe already in their back pocket--has Adult.'s half-hearted wish come true?

Kuperis pauses before answering, then starts with a laugh. "Yeah, well, we talk a lot of shit."

Adult plays May 16 at the Empty Bottle, 1035 North Western, (773)276-3600.

(2003-05-14)

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