Post-Disco Synth Pop
Shawna Pair
Album bio - Activator (August 11th 2023)
Activator, the debut album by Portland-based musician Shawna Pair, weaves between genres, from electropop to queer synth, glam rock to psych pop. Laced with innuendos and energy, the Alabama-born musician has storytelling in her blood.
Take “Manual Trans Manual,” a song about a guy who doesn't know how to drive a stick and has never been with a trans woman. Bolstered by a dancy electro bassline, she tease-sings, “I can guide you should you need my hand, I would wager you probably do.”
Known affectionately as the Earworm Queen, Activator showcases Pair’s knack for catchy genre bending. “Manual Trans Manual” rides alongside songs like “Skincare” and “Emergency Contact High” as lead bangers in the earworm department.
What would become Activator started in a very different place. In the summer of 2021, Pair was hired by a friend and fellow musician to shoot their wedding in Monterey, California. A freelance photographer at the time, Pair was broke and couldn’t turn down the work. So she packed up her gear and drove down from Portland, arriving on location to do what she does so well: encapsulate people’s happiest energies.
Hundreds of photos into the night, Pair had a distracting realization. The subjects of her photos were almost all people who worked in the music industry. They were successful and glamorous and they’d never given up on their craft. They’d worked their asses off to make music their lives. But at some point along her own journey, Pair had set music aside. Two thoughts hit her one after the other: I am a loser, and what I’m doing is not working.
“All the things I thought were right for me were wrong,” Pair says of that moment, which would become inspiration for a song called “I've Got Some Answers I Need Questioned,” the shimmering relief of a climax on the 8-song album. Pair recognized that if she was ever going to be happy, she had to make music her priority. No negotiations. Ever again.
That day at the wedding was not the first come-to-Jesus moment Pair experienced in recent years. In 2019, she came out as trans. And since then, everything has changed. For the first time in her life, Pair feels like herself. “At first, I’d walk into a room and wonder if anyone would know I was a trans woman. And now I’m like, who cares if they know I’m a trans woman?” This newfound peace with her truth afforded Pair an entirely new musical confidence. “I used to worry so much about not being cheesy; about being so original.” But now, she’s no longer intimidated by the idea of stepping out onto a musical limb.
When it came to the sound of the album, Pair wanted someone who would be open to any idea she might have, and who could wave their production wand over her tracks to make them sound more Shawna Pair. She wanted someone who would know what she was going for when she referenced the dancey, hypnotic electropop of Robyn or a Thin Lizzy riff; Billy Idol or Bowie or ACDC…her list of varied influences is long.
Pair had a very specific vision in mind when she contacted a trusted guide in the Portland music industry: producer, engineer and musician Cameron Spies (Night Heron, Reptaliens, The Shivas). “I’m the spirit of every song, but Cam helps make them more drive-y,” Pair says of Spies. “This is the music I’ve been trying to do all along, I’d only played in guitar rock and shoegaze bands so I just didn’t know the specifics of producing electronic music,
A good example of the Spies wand is “Emergency Contact High,” a song about a toxic relationship ending but the lonely, subconscious cravings of emotional abuse long after the partnership ends. The song features a guitar solo linking arms with a dancey synth backbone, alongside Spies’ vocal additions, and if you listen closely, Pair’s subtle harmonica flair.
Adding something like the harmonica to a song with a chugging guitar that’s also very drum machine heavy is part of what makes Activator so sonically playful. More than bringing people to the dance floor, Activator tells a story that’s both frustrating, honest and freeing. It’s about letting go of people and energies that no longer serve you. “And it’s about believing in myself,” Pair confesses. She sees how much power there is in not worrying about what anyone else is doing or thinking. “I’m ready for the world to know who I am,” she says. With Activator, everything is laid out bare and bold, acknowledging that becoming completely yourself is the only real way to activate happiness.