The Rogers Sisters
Indie Rock / Alternative
“The title comes from a card trick our father used to do when we were kids,” says Jennifer Rogers (vocals, guitar), explaining why the Brooklyn-based trio titled their new album, The Invisible Deck. “It’s mind-blowing, like real magic. Plus, we thought the word deck had a lot of different implications – decks are stacked and played, people and halls are decked, there are tape decks. The word invisible has a double meaning too; it can mean powerless or it can mean sneaky.”
“The idea of playing with a full deck versus playing with a less than full one is obvious,” adds her younger sister Laura (drums, backing vocals). “But I think playing with an invisible deck can have a lot of interpretations. Sleight of hand, and the idea of magician versus mark are interesting symbols for power dynamics: do you want to play, or do you want to be fooled? Are you seeing what you think you’re seeing? Are you in on the secret?”
The Rogers Sisters have themselves been an underground secret since the turn of the century, as anyone who’s witnessed their hip-shaking, synapse-firing live show can attest. Building on the spiky dancefloor manoeuvres of last year’s Three Fingers mini-album (reissued by Too Pure in 2005) and 2002’s debut LP Purely Evil (on the Troubleman Unlimited label), The Invisible Deck exudes a melodic intensity that should transform them from in-concert maestros to home-listening favourites.
“For the new album we experimented by writing music with a more classic song structure,” explains non-female sister Miyuki Furtado (vocals, bass). “Something that exhibited my melancholy and sinister personality”, he slyly added. “Jennifer feels that her tunes have always had a dark side, but that may have been disguised in earlier Rogers Sisters songs, beneath either girl group energies or more arty peculiarities.”
Laura cites the textured, doom-laden grind of eight-minute finale ‘Sooner Or Later’ as a personal favourite, noting that while Three Fingers was very bass-driven, The Invisible Deck is heavily guitar influenced. “We experimented with new sounds and a lot of layering, while avoiding making things overly complicated.” Tim Barnes and TJ Doherty, producer and engineer respectively, helped the group broaden their palette, complementing the sense of drama that pervades the ten-track opus.
“In addition to using a variety of unusual amps and guitars, we tracked some instruments straight to the board,” recalls Miyuki. “We took our time in capturing different drum sounds, by incorporating creative mic placement and covering drums with different materials. We also added some percussion and flute to our usual arsenal of sounds.”
He’s especially partial to the downtempo atmosphere of ‘Your Littlest World’, a six-minute masterclass in controlled virtuosity, unveiling Miyuki’s gentler side. “Jen’s singing is very graceful and there are some righteous guitar and bass solos on it. Though it’s the flute playing that’s the icing on the cake.”
The re-recordings of ‘Emotion Control’ and ‘The Conversation’ – previously available on seven-inch vinyl and as internet downloads – further demonstrate their studio prowess, striking a punchy accord between dissonance and detail. Meanwhile, freshly minted anthems such as lead single ‘Never Learn To Cry’ and ‘Why Won’t You?’ – the latter already proving an indie-club smash after it leaked in December 2005 – confirm what the cognoscenti have known for a while: here is a band who pack pop smarts, rock power and dance rhythms in equal measure. As before, these restless grooves are filled with meaningful (but never precious) content, be that social discourse or oblique existentialism. The Rogers Sisters don’t write love songs, but nor do they polemicise. Nonetheless, their questing lyricism and expansive worldview have seen them tagged as “political”.
Another misconception about The Rogers Sisters is that they’re a throwback to styles from the late ‘70s and early ‘80s. Their previous records scored rave reviews across the board, from The Times (“brittle pop and bass-melting disco”) to NME (“party rock for party people”) to Time Out London (“a riot with good-time beats”). Critics were quick to hear echoes of new wave and punk-funk staples such as ESG, Gang Of Four, The B-52’s, X-Ray Spex and The Cure (whose early number ‘Object’ was covered on Three Fingers – alongside the Captain Beefheart nugget ‘Zig Zag Wanderer’). The truth, as evidenced by the deeper sonic vistas explored in ‘The Invisible Deck’, is more complicated.
Although none of them are native New Yorkers – Jennifer and Laura hail from Detroit, Miyuki was born in Hawaii – The Rogers Sisters are firmly ensconced in Brooklyn. In recent years the borough has earned a reputation for left-field sounds. Miyuki feels a degree of civic pride, though he’s keen to point out that the trio aren’t part of a specific clique.
In addition to their musical activities, the sisters run the popular Brooklyn watering hole Daddy’s. The name was inspired by a conversation about Burt Reynolds’ vintage comedy caper ‘Smokey And The Bandit’. Jennifer: “We were laughing about Junior Justice whining ‘Daddy!’ to Jackie Gleason’s character Sheriff Buford T. Justice. Jackie Gleason seemed like a cool person to name a place after, plus he was born on the same day as me – him and Johnny Cash and Fats Domino.”
Although they’re not a bar band in the traditional sense, The Rogers Sisters began their own career in a drinking den. Jennifer put the group together the day before their first gig: a birthday party at Enid’s, a place run by some friends of hers in the Greenpoint district of Brooklyn.
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