Direct Current, Radar: Aimee Bobruk

To say that Austin-based songwriter Aimee Bobruk likes to color outside of the lines, musically speaking, would qualify as a pretty serious understatement. It's not surprising that Bobruk, who cites silent movies, painting and cartoons as influences, named her forthcoming January 29 album after the phonetic spelling of her name -- /ba:'brook/ --this is an musician who brings a distinctive visual focus to her art, as if she wants to see what others might hear. Calling on local indie stalwarts producer/bassist Brian Beattie and drummer Dony Wynn to help interpret her songs instrumentally, Bobruk manages to find the hidden, shadowy essence of her compositions, turning a song like her new "Two of a Kind" from what might have been a straight forward folk/pop song into something reeling, woozy and completely left-of-center. And, concurrently, completely disarming. “My original demo vocal was very shaky and lo-fi, and I loved the fragile texture of it, but I told my producer that there was no way I could ever reproduce it," says Aimee. "So, he started arranging the song into a duo that would consist of my old vocal side-by-side with the new track and we ultimately produced a song that morphs back and forth, between old and new, with one voice from two different times.”