Jane Remover is only 20 years old, but she’s been making and releasing music for years under different aliases and in a variety of styles, taking a maximalist, genre-agnostic approach to experimental pop.
“When I started releasing music, I wanted to do something different every time,” she says. “I want to work towards the goal of being a jack-of-all-trades.”
When writing and recording what would become last year’s “Census Designated,” Remover tried new approaches until writing “Lips,” a song that served as a skeleton key for the rest of the album in both mood and sound. The song begins quietly, with Remover’s gentle vocals and lyrics seemingly about the uncertainty of young love. The insistent guitar strumming eventually evaporates, as if the song is escaping gravity and heading to space, but then Remover stomps the distortion pedal and the drums kick in the door for a full-on fuzz explosion.
“I was experimenting a lot,” she recalls. “Out of all the demos that I kept playing over and over and over, the loud part of ‘Lips’ was something that I was so obsessed with [and I thought], ‘I can find a way to build a whole universe out of this.’”
That universe was also shaped by the horror movies she was watching during the making of the album. “Lips,” for example, was inspired by the suburban nightmare and macabre love of the brutal cult classic “Cutting Moments.” Soon, she would translate the viscera on her screen into visceral lyrics full to the brim with biting teeth, peeling eyes, young blood and fresh meat.
“I did want to keep lyrics vague and abstract, but also get the emotion there,” she says. “I felt like using body horror in the lyrics kept it vague enough, where everybody can interpret it differently.”
For a young artist, interpretation by critics and consumers can be a blessing and a curse. Navigating the world of online fandom can be especially treacherous for artists belonging to marginalized groups; Remover came out as a trans woman in 2022.
“Transitioning in the public eye is not easy,” she says. “But there has been overwhelming support that encourages me to keep doing what I want to do and keep doing what makes me happy.”
Remover has seen the impact of her music, at shows, in emails and on skin: She’s met fans with tattoo tributes to “Frailty.”
“That’s what keeps me going at the end of the day,” she explains, “to know what I’m doing is not in vain and that I’m doing the right thing.”
Feb. 21 at 8 p.m. at DC9, 1940 Ninth St. NW. dc9.club. Sold out.
