Music: Night falls on Lookbook

Hold on to your vintage '80s hipster clothing and torrent copies of "Purple Rain," because Lookbook's Grant Cutler has a confession to make.

"I actually don't like synth-pop all that much," said the bearded, dry-witted, reformed emo-rocker whose fascination with -- if not absolute appreciation for -- synthesizer-driven music was the impetus for one of this year's most popular new local groups.

Cutler and singing partner Maggie Morrison were a big part of a charmed year for electronic/dance-rock music locally. Some of the most sought-after concert tickets of the year were by dance floor- igniting rock bands such as Phoenix, the Big Pink and the newly digi-fied Yeah Yeah Yeahs. The most hotly hyped local act was synth-rock quintet Solid Gold. And the most commercially successful Minnesota act of 2009 -- by a long shot -- was Owatonna's computer-equipped wunderkind Owl City.

The year's best local dance-rock album, though, is Lookbook's two-month-old "Wild at Heart." When you throw in the duo's plethora of club shows and a new remix EP they're promoting Saturday at 7th Street Entry, you could call it a breakout year.

Cutler did not mean to put down the trend he rode in on when he made his confession. Rather, Lookbook's guitarist/programmer/gadgetry-handler was trying to hold up the talents of his musical conspirator.

"Maggie's singing is very natural and her writing is very real, and I think it needs to be like that or else our music would be very tacky," he said. "In synth-pop music, there has to be something earthy about it -- or forget it. Then it's just cheese."

Morrison was previously the singer in another electronic-based band, Digitata (back from hiatus with its own Entry gig next weekend). She offers the perfect chemical balance to Cutler's synthetic musings, with a breathy but powerful voice, and a knack for writing dark lyrics beneath bright pop melodies. She's part Karen O, Cyndi Lauper, Scandal's Patty Smyth and Bridget Fonda (think: Fonda's character in "Singles").

Morrison, too, had a surprising confession during our interview last week.

"I can only write my parts of the songs when I'm driving around in a car," she confided. "That way, I don't have to worry about anyone hearing me. I can be as experimental as I want or as loud as I want, and I'm a lot less self-conscious."

For many of the tracks on "Wild at Heart," Morrison would take off from her mom's house near Madison, Wis., for long, fast drives around the farmland valleys -- hardly the whirring urban nightlife setting of your typical synth-pop song. Those drives also gave her time to reflect on a breakup and other messed-up relationships.

"I have a really hard time letting go in my relationships, and I don't really express myself very well in those situations," she said. "I scared my ex-boyfriend, because I was writing lyrics phonetically when we were listening to some dummy tracks. He told me to write down what I was singing, and when I did, he was like, 'That's what you mean by that?!'"

A serious turn-on

So how exactly did this duo -- with a singer who's afraid of being heard and a synth-pop musician who doesn't like synth-pop music -- come about?

Morrison, 26, hails from the Twin Cities' musical farm-team city of Eau Claire, Wis. There, she hung out with the guys of Mel Gibson & the Pants, with whom she formed Digitata. She also got to know members of Kentucky Gag Order, whose burly, tattooed frontman Davey Matters enlisted her as a backup vocalist after she relocated to attend St. Catherine University.

"He'd pick me up at St. Kate's on his motorcycle when I was 18 and scare all the nuns," Morrison remembered. "I thought I was so cool."

Cutler, also 26, grew up in Aberdeen, S.D., where -- "only through pure luck," he said -- he got into music thanks to a string of hard-core punk shows at the local Knights of Columbus basement. He came to the Twin Cities to study at what is now McNally Smith College of Music and played in a string of rock bands, including the vaguely emo-ish Passions and the dubiously named Tom Hanks.

"I liked my bands, but I was so tired of rock music by the time I started doing this kind of stuff," Cutler said of Lookbook's genesis. Actually, "genesis" is an apt word: "I was listening to a lot of Prince and Phil Collins at the time," he said. "When I found out I could make that kind of music by myself, I was fascinated by it. So I just started experimenting with it."

Through their mutual producer-friend, Joe Mabott, Cutler let it be known he wanted Morrison to sing over his music. They started making music together toward the end of 2007, initially as a joke: Their first creation was a "hyper-sexual" trio called Tina Turn-on, which Cutler said "was a lot of fun, but probably would have only lasted three gigs."

The turning point came when Cutler challenged Morrison to craft "a serious song" around one of his demos, which became "Believe the Hype" on last year's drowsier, wearier EP, "I Fear You, My Darkness." Among the lines were: "This fear denies / It's so late into the tide / I tried to, [but] I never could believe the hype."

With "Wild at Heart," recorded last spring, the duo lightened up musically but sharpened their impact. "The Only Ones," in rotation at the Current (89.3), is a flashback to "Controversy"-era Prince with the opening line, "Don't tell me to go back to the way it was before." The CD opener, "Over and Over," sounds like an outtake from the new Yeah Yeah Yeahs album. And Morrison gets her Björk on vocally in the dramatic finale "Surprise" (about two friends convicted of eco-terrorism).

Digitata bandmate Drew Christopherson was surprised by the way Morrison came into her own in Lookbook.

"Mainly because she wasn't playing an instrument, I think Maggie discovered a whole new aspect to performing," he said. "She and Grant both work well with these subtly epic songs. Maggie is really good at squeezing a lot of dynamics and variation out of relatively calm and steady arrangements."

Two is a magic number

The two had already worked up some of the "Wild at Heart" songs by the time they hit the stage together in early 2008, quickly becoming a buzz band (lots of opening gigs with Solid Gold helped). Their minimal duo setup helped them stand out.

"It was scary at first, with nothing or no one else to hide behind onstage," Morrison said. "I still get a little nervous. But I have more fun performing in our band because there are less things to worry about, and we know each other so well now, we can interact easily. Everything about it just seems easy, it's kind of freeing."

The pair have been tempted to flesh out their lineup, but so far the only outside collaborator has been Nyteowl/Nytetraxx dancebeat wiz Jeremiah Conlon, who reinvented two tracks apiece off the previous Lookbook releases for the new "True to Form Remix EP."

Now that Cutler and Morrison have done a little touring -- with more on the books for the spring -- they find their minimal setup has its advantages.

"We can get all of our gear into Maggie's Subaru, with room to spare," Cutler boasted. "In fact, we should try to get Smart Car to sponsor us."

Of course, the biggest downside of being a coed twosome are all the questions about whether Morrison and Cutler are a couple (closely followed at gigs by: "Are you brother and sister?").

"We could be like the next Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham," Cutler wryly propositioned.

Morrison's response: "I'd say we're more like all the members of Fleetwood Mac combined."

At least they haven't completely lost the coyness of Tina Turn-on.

chrisr@startribune.com • 612-673-4658