Mary Jane Dunphe is a poet, songwriter, vocalist, performer and video artist. Mary Jane Dunphe’s work is an idiosyncratic assemblage of crooning and danceable avant-pop songs, full of longing, a love letter to no one in particular. She will be at Amplifest anda before we spoke with her about music and the concert. 

After having been in bands, why do you now choose to have a solo career?
The idea was that if I become a solo musician that I can make music for the rest of my life and the band will never break up, it’s my name and I can keep using it until I’m no longer around on earth. Also I feel like the sound can (and should) change as I get older. Learning to write solo songs, how to produce and record myself and are all really fruitful parts of deciding to become a solo artist. Things that I have a drive to never stop learning.

Your debut solo album is Stage of Love. How was the process of creating this album?
It took about 5 years to make. The first song took 9 months of just figuring out how to write a song alone and know when it’s done. The album began in 2019 and its making spanned through covid, personal health emergencies, (including losing my voice for almost a year) and really figuring out what kind of music I wanted to make and what kind of music comes out of me naturally. It’s a testament of where I was at, personally and my skills and understanding as a musician.

And the name how did you decide to put this nem on the album?
The name of the album comes from a Lacan quote, “love is giving something you don’t have to someone that doesn’t want it” so it the title track I sing “on the stage of love we give what we don’t have.” A lot of the songs are about longing, desire as a solitary practice and trying to find distance and perspective on this feeling that has covered much of my younger life experience like a hazy film.

Which songs and authors influenced the sound of this album?
Lacan, Spinoza, Emily Dickinson, Robert Duncan, greek myths, Harry Crews, Walter Benjamin, Western and eastern theologies, Section 25, Robert Wyatt, Bjork, Bowie, 90’s rnb, Tones on Tail, New Order, Harold Budd, The Beastie Boys, riding my bike and going on walks from Queens to Manhattan.

Maximum and sincere, can we call your music that?
Yes.

Today everything is rushing around and there’s no time to create great art, don’t you agree?
I do, I think playing is so important and as artists and musicians and writers we need time to play, day dream and also have time in a career to make things that aren’t perfect. Labels used to invest in artists development and I wish that potential as an artist was still recognized and that we were given the time and the funding to experiment and make something new.

Did you have an overarching desire to do something really great with this record? Do you think you made it?
I had the goal to find out the kind of music I want to make. I don’t think I fully succeeded but I didn’t expect to. What I did succeed in is making something that makes me feel something strong when I listen to it and when I perform it. It helped with releasing a lot of pain and expressing some things and events that occurred that are too hard to talk about in plain speak. I succeeded in writing songs that don’t just express an ache but also that give myself a little hope. I also succeeded in finishing something and giving it away to whoever wants to listen. And making something that makes me move.

The sound of your music is a danceable avant-pop songs, do you intent the audience to dance?
It’s cool if it makes people want to move, but I don’t have the expectation that people will want to dance to it. It’s not exactly 4 on the floor kind of music. It’s a little weirder. If it touches someone’s internal rhythm that’s cool too.

Have you ever been to Portugal?
No! I’ve always wanted to visit though.

What can we expect from your concert?
Equal parts aggression and tenderness.

What are your expectations regarding the Portuguese public?
No expectations! I always try and meet the next show with fresh expectations and giving as much as I can.