Over the past decade, the cluster of Toronto artists involved with Meg Remy’s project U.S. Girls has become its own cottage industry. Carlyn Bezic found a spot on bass and vocals in Remy’s latest touring band meant to support her 2020 album, Heavy Light, pre-COVID, but she has been a crucial component for much longer. Bezic first made waves as one half of electronic pop duo Ice Cream, before joining Remy in the hard-rocking quintet Darlene Shrugg. On her dazzling solo debut as Jane Inc., where she plays a Prince-like array of instruments and handles co-production, Bezic proves herself to be a musical Swiss Army knife, ready to be deployed for whatever task is needed.
The cheekily titled Number One initially came together as Bezic layered guitar, bass, synth, and vocals on top of pulsating samples and deeply funky drum breaks. Yet despite her versatility , she is best known as a guitarist, laying down scorching solos on songs like Ice Cream’s “FED UP” and Darlene Shrugg’s “First World Blues.” In interviews, Bezic has explained how this riff worship dates back to her teenage band Golden Ticket (now seemingly scrubbed from the internet). “I spent most of high school learning how to play Jimi Hendrix songs,” she laughs.
Bezic’s songs as Jane Inc. use the building blocks of rock, pop, and dark disco to construct shimmering structures with mediums intertwining like the landmarks of Antoni Gaudí. Alongside co-producer Steve “Tone Ranger” Chahley, the album features thunderous drums from Evan Cartwright (U.S. Girls, Tasseomancy) and a squealing sax solo from Nick Dourado (Beverly Glenn-Copeland, Aquakultre, BUDI) in the back half of “Bloom Becomes Me.” On “Faceless, Bodiless,” Scott Hardware drizzles Wurlitzer keys over Jane Fonda’s dialogue from the 1971 thriller Klute, creating a fractured funk sound reminiscent of My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts.
Fonda’s monologue about the many roles women are forced to play and her desire for anonymity is key to unlocking the themes of Number One. As Bezic has explained, “I think a lot of the songs on the album deal with how we form ourselves and how that gets fragmented and complicated by the societal structures we interact with.” Propelled by a burbling bass line, the stunning six-minute opener “Gem” is about surrendering to the identities we form online and how they manifest IRL. “Honey, I know that modern life is just a drag,” she sings dreamily, “but you can choose a you that never feels that bad.”
Gazing beyond her black mirror, Bezic tackles various collective struggles. “Steel” is about the mounting pressures of living as an artist in a city like Toronto where rent prices continue to skyrocket. “If I don't leave this town I'll burn it to the ground,” she warns, before peeling off another incendiary solo. “Dirt and the Earth” shares conflicted feelings of frustration and an admission of her complicity in the devastation of the environment. By the time she reaches the melancholy groove of “Obliterated,” Bezic has accepted that forms of digital expression will one day outlive her physical body. “Tell my loved ones I'm gone,” she sings. “All my photos and comments will live on/Obliterated by a speeding wave of information.”
Alongside her partner in Ice Cream, fellow U.S. Girls member Amanda Crist, Bezic has handled every aspect of the duo’s creative output down to wardrobe and styling since their earliest videos in 2014. On their latest album, FED UP, Ice Cream explored the tension between wanting attention and subverting the male gaze. “It’s a real mindfuck to be dealing with those ideas while being a performer and also feeling as if the music is sensual in a way,” Bezic explained. “Not wanting to be subject to that gaze but also playing within it.” As Jane Inc., she wields more control than ever before, finding freedom in multiplicity while remaining brazenly herself.
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