CHRISTIAN HANSEN

Toronto's Christian Hansen is typically joined by his bandmate Molly Flood, but the pair are also accompanied by their own doppelgängers in the clip for the title track from the recent Small Fry EP.

In this clip for this hip-hop-flavoured skewed R&B track, we see Hansen trading off lines with his own double, who is standing right next to him. Much of the nocturnal video plays out in slow motion, which lends an air of cinematic drama to the musicians' headbanging dances, cartwheels and step-jumping exploits.
-Alex Hudson
(Please visit supplied link to see video) - Exclaim!

Review- “C’mon Arizona”- Christian Hansen
Posted on December 10, 2012 by glasspaperweight
reviewed by Michael Thomas

There are two main approaches to making good pop music. On the one hand, you can be intently serious and create wondrous melodies paired with poetic lyrics. On the other hand, you can take pop music for the fun genre that it is and create some truly catchy music. Christian Hansen, formerly of Edmonton but now based in Toronto, is squarely in the latter camp.

Just looking at the track list will show you that Hansen certainly is not aiming to be the next Arcade Fire. Song like “Ma-Me-O” and “You Were a Juggalo” kind of prove that.

Musically, Hansen switches easily between electronics-dominated to songs with more traditional instruments. Each is done well, and augmented by a few wonderful female backup singers.

Hansen applies his wit liberally on some songs, and a bit more discreetly in others. “I Hate Punk Rock” is one of his most overtly sarcastic songs. The backing music is more or less an homage to punk’s sound of the 70s, with lyrics about a struggling independent musician whose life doesn’t quite go the way it’s supposed to. Most chillingly accurate is the line about crossing Saskatchewan to play in Brandon (Manitoba) for five people.

There are lots of unexpected twists and turns. A personal favourite was “Middle of the Night,” where a simple synth beat propels a series of lyrics that end with “middle of the night.” Randomly in two places you will get a wonderfully bizarre falsetto from Hansen.

“You Were a Juggalo” delves into the bizarre world that is fans of Insane Clown Posse, referring to one particular former fan. The song manages to reference Burning Man and djembes, among many other things. “New York, New York” is a very sweet song that is simultaneously aware that New York has been written about millions of times. “New York, New York, New York, won’t be a cliche/It’s the only way” says one line.

“Ma-Me-O” is a song that never seems to run of steam, driving forward as if it were a new track by Men Without Hats. “Spirit Guide” manages to not only feature some great call-and-response, but also at one point references Madonna’s “Holiday.”

There are more great songs to discover, but talking about them all will spoil the fun. C’mon Arizona is an exceedingly fun ride through effortlessly constructed pop that is sure to leave you wanting more.

Top Tracks: “Ma-Me-O”; “Middle of the Night”

Rating: Proud Hoot (Really Good) - Greyowl Point

Christian Hansen
C’Mon Arizona
(Independent)
One of the most sorely overlooked groups in Canadian indie music was Christian Hansen and the Autistics. Figuring that the name of the band and being trapped in Edmonton just wasn’t going to work out in the long run, Hansen and keyboardist/vocalist Molly Flood headed to Toronto with former Hot Hot Heat bassist Dustin Hawthorne and You Say Party! Drummer Al Boyle in tow. The resulting 11 track album certainly boasts more textures and arrangements than earlier albums, but the gist of bopping new numbers such as the opener "Ma-Me-O" and "Hurry Up And Die" is still all about Hansen’s smooth bass croon and cheeky lyrical twists over driving synth pumped hooks. Then there is the totally tongue-in-cheek "I Hate Punk Rock" bemoaning everyone going back to school to become engineers and selling their drums to buy a couch. Funny stuff and also musically accomplished.
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
--Stuart Derdeyn, Postmedia News

Read more: http://www.dose.ca/Album+reviews+Alexisonfire+Naked+Christian+Hansen+Scott+Walker+Khalifa/7648645/story.html#ixzz2K1eHPZQT - Vancouver Province

Establishing themselves in Edmonton and relocating to Toronto, it’s clear Christian Hansen & the Autistics are determined to make a statement round these parts. While the recordings have an artsy disco-dance-pop quality, the bands ability as an energetic live presence also comes to the fore, drawing on an indie-rock spirit while achieving a balance between retro dance-pop and a hint of British post-punk, punctuated with dynamic vocals, shining keyboards, cheeky harmonies and boundless energy. A strong band with the potential to appeal to a wider audience, they just might grow on you. - Lonely Vagabond Blog

The Underwater Landslides set was a nice calm start to the evening, so it left a great opportunity for Christian Hansen to kick things up a notch. Small admission: ever since reviewing C’mon Arizona last month there’s rarely been a day I haven’t listened to his music. Gracing the stage was just him and keyboardist Molly Flood.

Together they ripped through a set of high energy songs like “Hurry Up and Die,” “Ma-Me-O” and “Cocaine Trade” among others. With Flood pounding away on the keyboards, Hansen was free to move around a lot as he sang, and move around he did. At any point he could be bobbing up and down or making a wide variety of faces based on the song. - Grayowl Point

Though at the time they were still known by their longer moniker of CHRISTIAN HANSEN & THE AUTISTICS, the recently pseudonym-shortened CHRISTIAN HANSEN quite possibly have more positive energy in their limited membership per single show than some bands can claim to have in the entire stretch of their live performance careers.

Originally from the wondrous grid-like city of Edmonton, CHRISTIAN HANSEN recently packed up their MIDI-keys-heavy, baritone-vocal-fronted outfit and made the migratory jump to the Toronto music scene: and surely once they find their footing, they’re sure to fit in just fine.

“For everyone in this bar… high school SHOULD be over…” began Christian Hansen (the man) as the band finished the second song of their set. “If it’s not, you should be at home studying for your calculus final.” – this prompted one eager fan to declare high school dead before CH&TA jumped into their track ‘High School’s Over’.

Even short their drummer (who was unable to attend at the last minute), guitarist/vocalist Hansen and keyboardist/vocalist Molly Flood easily have enough movement – of equal parts rocking out, head-banging, and extreme facial expressions – to make up for that.

Pair this with the fact that the majority of their songs are bubble-y electro-pop with the odd hint of trumpet-filled ska and falsetto’d vocal lines, or that they occasionally feature sexually-suggestive lyrics, and at 1AM after a few beers you might have trouble NOT dancing.

That being said, I would kill to see them with a REALLY lively drummer to back the whole thing, because that would surely push them into the “killer live show” status that I always hope to find in bands when I’m out at festival shows.

If I took anything away from this set in particular though, it’s that CHRISTIAN HANSEN doesn’t have far to go to hit that level in my book. - www.theindiemachine.com

Though at the time they were still known by their longer moniker of CHRISTIAN HANSEN & THE AUTISTICS, the recently pseudonym-shortened CHRISTIAN HANSEN quite possibly have more positive energy in their limited membership per single show than some bands can claim to have in the entire stretch of their live performance careers.

Originally from the wondrous grid-like city of Edmonton, CHRISTIAN HANSEN recently packed up their MIDI-keys-heavy, baritone-vocal-fronted outfit and made the migratory jump to the Toronto music scene: and surely once they find their footing, they’re sure to fit in just fine.

“For everyone in this bar… high school SHOULD be over…” began Christian Hansen (the man) as the band finished the second song of their set. “If it’s not, you should be at home studying for your calculus final.” – this prompted one eager fan to declare high school dead before CH&TA jumped into their track ‘High School’s Over’.

Even short their drummer (who was unable to attend at the last minute), guitarist/vocalist Hansen and keyboardist/vocalist Molly Flood easily have enough movement – of equal parts rocking out, head-banging, and extreme facial expressions – to make up for that.

Pair this with the fact that the majority of their songs are bubble-y electro-pop with the odd hint of trumpet-filled ska and falsetto’d vocal lines, or that they occasionally feature sexually-suggestive lyrics, and at 1AM after a few beers you might have trouble NOT dancing.

That being said, I would kill to see them with a REALLY lively drummer to back the whole thing, because that would surely push them into the “killer live show” status that I always hope to find in bands when I’m out at festival shows.

If I took anything away from this set in particular though, it’s that CHRISTIAN HANSEN doesn’t have far to go to hit that level in my book. - www.theindiemachine.com

wo years into it, Edmonton’s Christian Hansen and the Autistics have mastered the art of cloaking smart, heavy lyrics that tell a story in mindlessly fun ’80s-inspired keyboard-heavy pop music made to dance and sing along to.

It’s quite an accomplishment — how else would a song about a man so dissatisfied with life that masturbation becomes his only means of escape make it into regular rotation on a mainstream radio station?

For Christian Hansen, Molly Flood, Scott Shpeley and Ava Jane Markus, the pair of couples that make up the Autistics, this little bit of subversion is pretty satisfying.

“I’m so happy it’s on the radio,” Shpeley says over creamy Sunday morning cappuccinos.

There’s a reason for the sharp juxtaposition between content and style, which isn’t readily apparent without a careful listen. “Something I think is kind of interesting is when you have a song that has a pop structure and really great melodies but the lyrics are about something bigger, something that really has weight to it,” Hansen says.

Flood agrees. “Some of the junk they play on radio, they’re saying really explicit things but they’re really saying nothing. It’s way more scary to say something about, we’re going through this issue together.”

With the unveiling of their latest, the Swans E.P., on June 4 at a rare all-ages show, there’ll be four more dance-tastic tales to slot in beside 2009 debut Power Leopard.

The band’s focus on storytelling is only natural, considering the members’ collective and extensive background in theatre. These dramatic roots also provide the basis for the Autistics’ well-thought-out, self-described “in-your-face” live show, which Hansen summarizes in one of those facial expressions worth a thousand words.

“For us the performance is the first thing,” Hansen says. “Our live setup is very simple. There’s nothing to take our attention away from really giving it.”

“We make eye contact,” Markus adds. “We don’t face our backs to the audience.”

Finishes Hansen, “We don’t really take ourselves very seriously and there’s kind of an intrinsic sense of humour and sense of play in the music and in the stage show.”

But as with anything else, not everyone gets it: a recent warm-up gig in Kamloops for a cover band called — yes — Spandex seemed to threaten the masculinity of at least one of the chicken-wing devouring sports bar patrons, who had a few high-school caliber words to shoot at the band. It happens, though, especially when people aren’t willing to look deeper than face value.

“People would see us live and think, ‘Those guys are idiots. They’re just dancing around. They don’t have a drummer, there’s no guitar. What are they doing up there?’ I think there’s a depth to what we’re doing and the stories that we’re telling. It isn’t fluff. But we can be written off as fluff when people look on the surface,” Hansen says.

Flood adds, “That’s how you fly under the radar.”
- SEE Magazine

CONCERT PREVIEW
CHRISTIAN HANSEN & THE AUTISTICS
With: Paper Planes and Dragon Boats

View Larger Image
Christian Hansen & The Autistics: from left, Molly Flood, Hansen, Scott Shpeley and Ava Jane Markus
Brian Gavriloff, The Journal


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When: Friday at 7 p.m.
Where: Avenue Theatre, 9030 118th Ave.
Tickets: Sold out
- - -
It's tempting to refer to electro-pop darlings Christian Hansen & The Autistics as the Fleetwood Mac of Edmonton. "Please do," smiles the local frontman.
Not only is Hansen married to Molly Flood (keyboards), Scott Shpeley (bass) and Ava Jane Markus (keyboards) are approaching four years of togetherness. (Fleetwood Mac, in its heyday, featured two couples, who broke up around the time of Rumours ... but that's not where we're going with this story.)
"The whole Fleetwood Mac thing is weird," Hansen says.
"I sort of have this sound in my head -- I hear aspects of Fleetwood Mac mixed with Daft Punk and Black Flag -- and I want to realize that (with the Autistics). It's somewhere between punk rock and disco and R&B."
They have yet to realize this intriguing mishmash, but the band's new four-song EP, Swans, is a few steps, or flaps, in a new direction. While their last eff ort, Power Leopard, was an exhilarating concoction of synths, silly beats, and ironic lyrics about hipsters, masturbation and drugs -- Cocaine Trade was a huge hit on Sonic 102.9 FM -- Swans is a much more serious aff air, rooted in philosophical questions, sexual politics and bittersweet melodies.
"With these songs, and some of the stuff I'm working on in my head, the lyrics are getting even more darker and the sense of humour is disappearing," Hansen says. "I've been thinking about death a lot ... it's all around us, all the time. Life is short and you've got to do something."
Lonely Animals, the EP's boppiest number, is a kick-in-the-ass to "give 'er," says Hansen. "We're not THAT Albertan," Flood, a B.C. native, retorts in mock horror. Don't Leave Her Out questions men who spend more time with their "dude friends" than their wives, while Normal People, inspired by Hansen's work with an autistic man, contemplates the whole concept of normality. "It's about responsibility to other humans," Markus says of the four-song EP.
Which means Hansen and the Autistics feel a growing responsibility to each other -- as musicians with burgeoning careers -- and to their fans. Over the years, they've morphed from neophyte musicians to seasoned performers who stage their shows like theatrical productions -- choreographing their dance moves and scripting their banter. (All four are actors and met as students in the University of Alberta's bachelor of fine arts program.) Friday's sold-out EP release show will also feature six or seven video cameras set up around Avenue Theatre, which gig-goers will be able to use to film the band's set.
"Instead of getting together, practising the songs and going, 'We'll just figure it out,' now we're going, 'No, we need this song here 'cause we're going to do this dance that will lead into this,' " explains Shpeley.
"We rehearse it like a theatre show. We leave lots of room for play, but I think the more structured it is, the better response we get from the audience."
How will fans respond to the darker mood of Swans? Hansen isn't sure -- and he admits this uncertainty sometimes messes with his creative process. Yet he's a creature of change; his first offering, The Super Awkward Album, was a collection of acerbic folk-pop tunes.
"I have all this stuff in my head about people's expectations, what the identity of the band is, being conscious of the brand you're building," he says. "People identify you with a certain thing so you have to juggle that with what feels honest for you. You get self-conscious about how to write. 'Oh, this song is too straightforward. It needs to have a catchy, ironic thing.' "
Hansen hopes the wackiness of the band's previous hit, Cocaine Trade, with its marimba, cowbells and robotic vocals, will mean their fans will welcome the band's new musical twists and turns.
"I rack my brain as to why that song was so popular," Hansen says. "It was so weird. I think that's what we need to do, if we want to do an acoustic track, we're going to do it. If we want to add a live cello, we're going to do it. I think that's partly why people enjoy us -- it's different and the album is kind of all over the map. If we continue to establish that we're all over the map, we can do anything!"
They're off to Toronto for a few dates, including a showcase at North by Northeast, then plan to finish their next full-length album, which should bring them even closer to the Fleetwood Mac-Daft Punk-Black Flag melange in Hansen's head. He expects the disc, co-produced by Doug Organ at Edmontone Studios and funded by a grant from Rawlco Radio, will be ready in six to eight months.
"I feel rock coming back into the mix a bit," muses Hansen. "I - Edmonton Journal

Christian Hansen & The Autistics – Power Leopard / Darcy M.

In a spontaneous fit of civic duty and whiteness, I walked into an independent record store a few months ago and purchased three albums by three locals bands. One of these was from Christian Hansen & the Autistics, who were recently featured as band of the month on a local radio station. Power Leopard has unexpectedly received a good deal more playtime on my iPod than the other two albums combined. I was originally wary of Mr. Hansen due to his unique delivery and the similarities between “Cocaine Trade” (the song that was played on the radio; even when promoting local bands, radio stations don’t bother to vary their playlists) and the CSS remix of Sia’s “Buttons”. Along the way, after revisiting it again and again, Power Leopard won me over and I began to realize its true greatness.

Even after having Power Leopard for four months, I’m still not quite sure from what angle I should approach it as the album itself is quite broad. It runs the full gamut from playful and trivial to deadly serious and emotionally disarmed. As you can imagine with a band name like The Autistics (a name Hansen defends quite nicely), Mr. Hansen does not shy away from sensitive issues. Yet there is also a playfulness in the name that is embodied in the tone and some of the lyrics in the album.

Hansen covers lighter topics like threesomes (“You Me Him Us”) and masturbation (“Pump It”). He also engages in his own tongue-in-cheek social commentary in songs such as “Cocaine Trade”, “High School is Over” and especially in “Churchill Square” where he is quite mockingly critical of the hipster crowd and their pretensions: “He shows me the tat on his right hand/You know he got it the traditional way/when he backpacked through Thailand/”. I was pleasantly surprised, and amused, that Hansen would turn on a group of people that I would have assumed would have been his bread and butter audience. But yes, I agree with you Mr. Hansen, they are douche-bags and you are doing a public service by pointing out their ridiculous pretensions.

Hansen, though, is at his best when he is dealing with surprisingly serious issues. “Calypso Hippo” and “Father Ray” deal with sex tourism and sexual abuse at the hands of a religious figure, respectively. These are hardly standard fare for your typical album, let alone an album electronic in nature, which are generally stereotyped as being quite fluffy and insubstantial. I think the reason for this is because it is remarkably difficult to write a song about such sensitive and possibly inflammatory issues. Frankly, “Father Ray” could have fallen lyrically and thematically flat on its face but for an abrupt and conspicuously up-tempo bridge where Hansen sings: “I must admit/I’m trying to forget/Is that wrong?” At this point I immediately recalled my own experiences when dealing with victims of sexual abuse and they way that they dealt with such a horrible ordeal. There is a mixture of declaration and moral uncertainty mixed together adding an incredible amount of authenticity and nuance to the song in one simple bridge.

The final touch is the incredible voice of Christian Hansen, himself. The man can sing. His voice is strong and male, to be sure, but there is also a heavy dose of melancholy that comes through when it is needed the most. In the above passage from “Father Ray”, Hansen delivers those lines with such obvious feigned happiness that you can practically see him smiling with tears in his eyes while he is singing them. There is also a high level of emotional vulnerability and honesty, in songs like “Father Ray” but also in “Someone I Can Love” and “Kirkegaard”.

If I had to pick something wrong with the album, it would be The Joe’s appearance. While I’m not a hip-hop aficionado, I am sure that those who are would not be impressed with his lyrics, style or delivery on “How I’m Living”, which is, otherwise, a decent song. “You Me Him And Us” has a rather obnoxious loop employed sporadically throughout the song. Finally, the amount of polish put on the production can be uneven in parts. Obviously these are minor gripes and can be easily overlooked in the context of the entire album.
Last week, everyone was asked to pick their favorite album of the year thus far. Though I missed the deadline, Power Leopard is my pick.

This is an album in which you take out as much as you would like to put into it: it is as much dance-club fun as it is an emotionally honest snapshot of a weird time and place. It is rife with songs which are gems. The music is purposefully kept simple to showcase Christian Hansen’s highly capable voice. I look forward to hearing more from these guys in the future; they deserve all the success that is hopefully coming to them. - Pajiba

IN CONCERT: CHRISTIAN HANSEN & THE AUTISTICS

Where: The Railway Club, 579 Dunsmuir St.

When: Wednesday night at 9 Tickets: At the door

- - - - - - -

We all know it's true. Heck, Jay-Z even rapped about it. There is no need for another simplistic booty-shaking urban track with a vocoder chorus. But the world can always use more hooky dance tracks boasting intelligent lyricism and tight arrangements. Yup, even with some vocoder.

Take "Cocaine Trade" by Christian Hansen and the Autistics.

With a professionally shot video on YouTube, the single showcases the extremely funky beats, powerful singing and deliciously snide social observations that make the group one to watch. Fronted by former Crescent Beach resident Hansen, the drummer-less quartet is one of Edmonton's hottest indie acts.

Its latest CD, Power Leopard, is a 10-tune tour de force — and occasionally farce — that references everyone from Joy Division and Talking Heads to more recent acts such as Chromeo, Young Jeezy and such.

And the band is having a banner year. Its hometown's Sonic 102.9 FM named it Band of the Month in February.

They received a grant to record their next album. And the Edmonton Journal has been spreading the love. I named the band's show opening for You Say Party! We Say Die! one of my Top 10 Performances of 2009.

Now the group is on tour in B.C., hitting that indie-rock touchstone the Railway Club Wednesday night. It's a homecoming for Hansen, a University of Alberta theatre program grad like the rest of the motivated performers in the band — Molly Flood (keys, voice, handclaps), Scott Shpeley (bass, voice, hip shakes) and Ava Jane Markus (keys, voice, amazing Egyptian snake hands).

"I played in the Darling Mine in Vancouver for a few years before heading back to Edmonton to be with Molly, now my wife," says Hansen. "After Darling Mine broke up, I moved far away from the whole band thing to a more singer/songwriter idea and recorded an album of acoustic tracks.

"But that really wasn't where it wound up going. Instead, we wound up with this heavily performance-oriented, high-energy dance band that spends its time making love to the audience instead of its silly guitar effects."

There is no denying that a show is what this group delivers. Often pushing to the limits of being able to hold it together, the band pops out silly choreography, slamming improvisations and loses its collective body weight in sweat. But it has something to say that manages to ring through all the bumping fun.

From "Cocaine Trade's" message of Theypeople ignoring where the money they spend on diversion actually goes to the child-sex-tourism tale of "Calypso Hippo," Hansen writes some pretty fierce lines. He'll even bite the hand that feeds musical acts like his, as in the stab at globe travelling hipsters getting "tattoos in the traditional way hiking in Thailand."

"I kind of had this epiphany that I'd heard the story of someone getting these traditional tattoos on a trek in Asia or Amsterdam or wherever thousands of times to the point it's cliche," he says. "I suppose it's possible getting a tattoo can be some life-changing experience, but the idea of the courageous white explorer going to the far dark reaches of the globe and coming back marked and changed forever seems very suspect."

From the power and masculine-obsessed world of modern hip hop to the "dark places my mind dwells," the singer is on a mission to make music that suits the lyrical setting. The Vancouver show will feature Power Leopard songs and new tracks from the four-song EP, Normal People.

And if you think that is a play on the whole Autistics name, it isn't. That comes from Hansen spending years working with autistic children, having relatives with the condition and family involvement in autism care. He knows it's a provocative name, but most good band names are.

If people make negative assumptions about what he thinks is a positive use of the word autistic, too bad. The suggestion is to take a chill pill and get your dance on.

sderdeyn@theprovince.com - Vancouver Province

IN CONCERT: CHRISTIAN HANSEN & THE AUTISTICS

Where: The Railway Club, 579 Dunsmuir St.

When: Wednesday night at 9 Tickets: At the door

- - - - - - -

We all know it's true. Heck, Jay-Z even rapped about it. There is no need for another simplistic booty-shaking urban track with a vocoder chorus. But the world can always use more hooky dance tracks boasting intelligent lyricism and tight arrangements. Yup, even with some vocoder.

Take "Cocaine Trade" by Christian Hansen and the Autistics.

With a professionally shot video on YouTube, the single showcases the extremely funky beats, powerful singing and deliciously snide social observations that make the group one to watch. Fronted by former Crescent Beach resident Hansen, the drummer-less quartet is one of Edmonton's hottest indie acts.

Its latest CD, Power Leopard, is a 10-tune tour de force — and occasionally farce — that references everyone from Joy Division and Talking Heads to more recent acts such as Chromeo, Young Jeezy and such.

And the band is having a banner year. Its hometown's Sonic 102.9 FM named it Band of the Month in February.

They received a grant to record their next album. And the Edmonton Journal has been spreading the love. I named the band's show opening for You Say Party! We Say Die! one of my Top 10 Performances of 2009.

Now the group is on tour in B.C., hitting that indie-rock touchstone the Railway Club Wednesday night. It's a homecoming for Hansen, a University of Alberta theatre program grad like the rest of the motivated performers in the band — Molly Flood (keys, voice, handclaps), Scott Shpeley (bass, voice, hip shakes) and Ava Jane Markus (keys, voice, amazing Egyptian snake hands).

"I played in the Darling Mine in Vancouver for a few years before heading back to Edmonton to be with Molly, now my wife," says Hansen. "After Darling Mine broke up, I moved far away from the whole band thing to a more singer/songwriter idea and recorded an album of acoustic tracks.

"But that really wasn't where it wound up going. Instead, we wound up with this heavily performance-oriented, high-energy dance band that spends its time making love to the audience instead of its silly guitar effects."

There is no denying that a show is what this group delivers. Often pushing to the limits of being able to hold it together, the band pops out silly choreography, slamming improvisations and loses its collective body weight in sweat. But it has something to say that manages to ring through all the bumping fun.

From "Cocaine Trade's" message of Theypeople ignoring where the money they spend on diversion actually goes to the child-sex-tourism tale of "Calypso Hippo," Hansen writes some pretty fierce lines. He'll even bite the hand that feeds musical acts like his, as in the stab at globe travelling hipsters getting "tattoos in the traditional way hiking in Thailand."

"I kind of had this epiphany that I'd heard the story of someone getting these traditional tattoos on a trek in Asia or Amsterdam or wherever thousands of times to the point it's cliche," he says. "I suppose it's possible getting a tattoo can be some life-changing experience, but the idea of the courageous white explorer going to the far dark reaches of the globe and coming back marked and changed forever seems very suspect."

From the power and masculine-obsessed world of modern hip hop to the "dark places my mind dwells," the singer is on a mission to make music that suits the lyrical setting. The Vancouver show will feature Power Leopard songs and new tracks from the four-song EP, Normal People.

And if you think that is a play on the whole Autistics name, it isn't. That comes from Hansen spending years working with autistic children, having relatives with the condition and family involvement in autism care. He knows it's a provocative name, but most good band names are.

If people make negative assumptions about what he thinks is a positive use of the word autistic, too bad. The suggestion is to take a chill pill and get your dance on.

sderdeyn@theprovince.com - Vancouver Province

CHRISTIAN HANSEN & THE AUTISTICS
BEATS AND BRAINS: CHRISTIAN HANSEN & THE AUTISTICS IS THE THINKING DANCER’S PARTY BAND
Maria Kotovych / maria@vueweekly.com

‘Spectacle is great, as long as there’s also something real. I like spectacle backed by a human truth, something you try to discover—even if it’s as simple as a good show that engages.”

Christian Hansen tilts righteously at the fallacies of the creative arts, with bandmates Scott Shpeley and Molly Flood making common cause. The Spectacle Myth is a favourite target—the notion that fun is vacuous; amusement is the enemy of the mind, incapable of reckoning or revelation.

“Musicians now often focus on each other, how they play, their pedals. They’re only engaging the aural sense,” Hansen elaborates. “We want to play for more than the three of us. We want to communicate with the audience—and we try really actively. When we play live, it’s not about the music, but about performing, experience, exchange. You can’t get that from the Internet, CDs, video.”

Shpeley picks up Hansen’s thread. “Every day we get flooded by media. We want to invite people to move, to dance. Even dudes.”

“Especially dudes.” Hansen adds. He sighs and turns to Shpeley. “We’re all love, man. We gotta get tougher stories.”

Christian Hansen & the Autistics do actually have tougher stories, but those are woven into their music, a juxtaposition of bleak and frothy propelling the Edmonton-based trio into relevance—electro-bards adeptly chronicling our fraught and awesome, narcissistic and alienating, portentous and potentially apocalyptic digital age in the middle North America of the early 21st century.

On one hand, Christian Hansen & the Autistics assemble deceptively simplistic, playfully layered dance music that harkens back to the supremely cheeseball house of late ‘80s/early ‘90s, but rattles that cage with a piecey postmodern approach and promiscuous musical influences ranging from nouveau orchestral geek pop to all stripes of hip hop, vintage ad jingles to anthemic stadium rock, early video game bleeps and boops to ‘80s John Hughes film soundtracks and the cacophonous erratic audio percolation of modern existence .

Then into this cozy oddball musical bed, Hansen—in a creaseless buoyant croon that jostles intriguingly with its sonic realm—tucks in sad-fucker portraits of contemporary life: an American sex tourist wobbling drunkenly to island music while a bevy of exotic prostitutes is rounded up for his pickings, an uneasy dude giving into his girlfriend’s fantasy of having two men at once, a chronic masturbator stuck in a dead-end life, an aspiring Albertan yearning for boom bling, a man haunted by childhood sexual abuse by a priest and more. Hansen’s stories have the crackling feel of literary short pieces, deftly drawn and heartbreaking particulars nestled in broader strokes of moody ambiguity peppered by numbing everyday static,

The band’s forthcoming debut, Power Leopard, vividly catalogues these and other tentative navigations of murky societal waters, set to almost disturbingly dance-compelling synth-soaked beats and melodies.

“‘Oh, baby you left me and my broken heart,’” Hansen says wearily. “It’s not that it isn’t worthy, but I’m looking for a new way to say it, and there’s so much more to say. I like using specifics in songwriting; details of the uncomfortable weirdness of the modern world.” He rankles against more creative falsehoods. “And you can say a lot as a character. People assume the singer’s talking as themselves in songs, and somehow that has more credibility. They think something made up isn’t emotionally authentic. I don’t believe that. When I write, I use things that happened to me, happened to other people, things I heard on the news, whatever—I meld them together. I’m expressing myself, not necessarily expressing my experiences.”

He shrugs. “Besides, I can only write when I’m happy. It’s bullshit, the tortured artist. I create better when things are fine. If I’m depressed, I’m not making music—I’m sitting alone in my room, eating ice cream and watching shitty TV.”

Anyway, CH&A provide the remedy for anxiety alongside probing abuse, soul-crushing jobs and relationships, social networking perils and the wealth gap.
“Just because it has a dance beat doesn’t mean it has to be frivolous,” Hansen stresses. “For us, it’s not about ‘dance music,’ but a beat and a catchy line you can hook into, then encouraging others to have as much fun as we are live, to have a physical response to the music. It’s cool to challenge what people think is ‘rocking.’ We rock harder than a band with stacks and guitars.” V - Vue Weekly

Christian Hansen was craving change when he packed his bags for Toronto nearly two-and-a-half years ago.

“We love Edmonton; we still love Edmonton,” says Hansen, who moved to Toronto with his wife and bandmate, Molly Flood. “It was one of those things where if we don’t go we’d always be wondering what would happen if we had gone.”

Hansen was known throughout Edmonton’s music scene for his eclectic electro anthems, but he had to start from scratch in Toronto as the new kid in a saturated industry. He had gone from packed rooms to being able to count the amount of people in the crowd at the band’s first Toronto shows on one hand.

“You don’t realize what that does to your head until you’re outside of that situation,” he says of his local prominence. “I’m always very conscious of just being a good person and treating people with respect and when you have people coming to your shows and caring about what you do it’s a blessing, right? But when we moved here and that was all gone, you maybe realize, whoa, I guess that did get inside my head a little bit and I think it maybe informs your expectations, so it was good. That was another good benefit of the move, just being humble—not that I wasn’t humble—but taking it back to the basics and having to prove yourself.”

The crowds are larger these days, however, and often include a dedicated contingent Hansen affectionately refers to as the “Edmonton Mafia.”

“There’s people from Edmonton I think at every show we’ve played in Toronto,” he adds. “It’s so funny because there’s an Edmonton connection with everything, I feel like, and I don’t think it’s just because I’m from Edmonton. You’ll meet someone that knows someone or we’ll overhear conversations of people talking about Edmonton that we don’t even know. It’s weird.”

Toronto feels like home now, but Hansen took those initial feelings of loneliness and isolation and chanelled them into the band’s new EP, Small Fry. The disc is an introspective collection that also offers a new sound for the band, melding influences of hip-hop acts like early Three 6 Mafia and UGK with post punk and Hansen’s baritone vocals and eerie synth melodies.

“I think that the first year, it’s kind of like a honeymoon period because it’s a new city, new people and you’re discovering all these new places and meeting new social circles and all the challenges that come with a new city. Once you’re here you get down to the brass tacks of everyday life in this new city,” Hansen recalls, noting it was at this point that he realized just how disconnected they felt, a sense that put him into a darker headspace to write the record.

“When you’re going into a new place you cannot expect anything. The onus is on you to make of it what you’ll make of it. You can’t come to a big city and expect people to just want to be your friend; you have to open yourself up to meeting new people and open yourself up to, as terrifying as it is, going to a show by yourself and saying hey to someone, you know what I mean? That was kind of our mindset going here and I think it’s paid off.” - VUE Weekly

it left a great opportunity for Christian Hansen to kick things up a notch. Small admission: ever since reviewing C’mon Arizona last month there’s rarely been a day I haven’t listened to his music. Gracing the stage was just him and keyboardist Molly Flood.

Together they ripped through a set of high energy songs like “Hurry Up and Die,” “Ma-Me-O” and “Cocaine Trade” among others. With Flood pounding away on the keyboards, Hansen was free to move around a lot as he sang, and move around he did. At any point he could be bobbing up and down or making a wide variety of faces based on the song.
-Michael Thomas - Grayowl Point