TLOBF Loves…Rubies

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Music makes connections. Through their music, lead vocalist/songwriter Simone Rubi and bassist/vocalist Terri Lowenthal of the Oakland bedroom disco band Rubies strive to make human connection their ultimate modus operandi.

Friends for seven years and former members of the now defunct Oakland pop ensemble Call and Response, Lowenthal and Rubi form the nucleus of the band, rounded out for live shows by Nicolas Dobbratz on guitar and vocals, and Øyvind Skarbø on drums. Currently signed to Tellé Records (Europe), Hybris (Sweden) and Rallye (Japan), Rubies began as a one-woman managed band. “I funded the album, managed the band, and booked shows,” says Rubi. “Most of that was done solely through the relationships I have.”

These relationships, often cultivated through Rubi’s work as an art designer for bands, as well as her own band’s penchant for ad hoc live collaborations on the road, remain as important today as ever. On top of sending her overseas to tour, they’ve had her teaming up with some of the best in the business. For Rubies’ debut album, Explode from the Center (out now except in the U.S.), the vaporizing jazz harmonies and synth-heavy dance floor songs coalesced with the help of an eclectic cadre of European musicians, ranging from Maria Eriksson (The Concretes), Lars Skoglund (live drummer of Peter Bjorn and John) and former labelmate Eirik Glambek Bøe (Kings of Convenience). The meteoric Leslie Feist lent her icy vocals on a couple tracks as well, namely ‘The Truth and the Lies’ and ‘I Feel Electric.’ Rubi laughs, “I think we’re just using that as a way to hang out together, because she’s a real busy girl.” The ladies’ friendship began when Feist sang on the Kings of Convenience album Riot on an Empty Street; when it came time for her to record her second album, The Reminder, she enlisted Rubi to design the stately album artwork.

Out of all these collaborations comes a decidedly pleasing disco-soul album that holds shimmering 1970s elements in its hands like effervescent strobes shining across the room. Its disco ball refractions mostly point back to Rubi’s love for melody in European music. “Europeans have a great sense of that, whereas I think some American bands and subculture scenes get really stuck on trying to replicate something that’s already been done.”

Outside of setting herself apart with cosmopolitan tunes, the band’s leader creates artwork through photography, paper art, and primarily graphic design. In fact, Rubi presented her artwork during this year’s Noise Pop festival’s Sights of Sounds show. With heaps of sincerity, Rubi acknowledges this fact: “I can’t do music without art and I can’t do art without music.” Besides facilitating an even greater web of support and involvement in the art community, her double-headed passion results in an exciting mimesis on Explode in the form of lines, which are Rubi’s primary tool for conveying narrative on canvas, digital or otherwise. Most markedly, the chorus of ‘Stand in a Line’ points to Rubi’s desire to connect with her audience and the people she makes music with and to ultimately create what she calls a global network: “You stand in a line / You will never fit / Until you take the time to draw a circle around it.” In like fashion, one of Rubi’s most personal songs, the intimate Feist duo ‘The Truth and the Lies,’ was appropriately recorded in a circle.

Rubi has noticed one definite item in her globetrotting life. “Traveling around a lot on my own, I’ve sort of been drawing lines between all of the people I know — we’ve been calling it the circle of radness.” With a current tour in Europe and plans for an American tour in the works, that circle will only get larger, connecting hearts and ears along the way.

This feature was originally printed in the May 2008 issue of San Francisco’s West Coast Performer.

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