"Transplanted Brit goes back to basics"
By, SEAN SPILLANE
Abigail Zsiga had a nice little career going for
herself in her native England in the early 1990s, singing on some big dance music hits
there and earning several awards in the process.
But there was something missing in that producer-dominated realm and Zsiga was determined
to find it. A back-to-basics approach helped in her quest. "I began as more of an
acoustic artist and the very first band that I ever put together, when I was like 17, was
a lot more of the kind of music I'm doing now," Zsiga, who will perform Friday night
at The Space in her adopted hometown of Hamden, said in a recent phone interview. "It
was more along the singer-songwriter vibe with proper acoustic accompaniment. "The
dance music thing came along almost by accident, for want of a better phrase. I just had
this great opportunity that presented itself and I ran with it. It just turned into what I
was doing for years . . . and enjoying every minute of it. "But with dance music,
it's so much a studio-driven genre and it's tough for an artist . . . to have much input
because it's left in the hands of re-mixers and producers to make it what it is," she
said. "But a few years back, I just felt that I wanted to sit and write again and
just be a lot more free with what I was doing.
"I really needed to get my hands dirtier. I missed being in the studio and I missed
just sitting down and crafting a song." In recording her first proper solo album -
she released an album in 1994 of dance music - Zsiga became very hands-on, writing or
co-writing 10 of the 11 songs on Home . . . Again and also having her say in the
production of the record. With dance music, "you've got very little control over what
somebody does with the tracks," she said. "I've had so many tracks come back
that were so different than how I originally wrote them or how I envisioned them.
"That's why this new album has been such a great thing. It's been my baby from the
beginning and I've been involved in every single element of it. That's what's been so
fabulous about it." Another of those elements Zsiga has been involved in is setting
up her own label to release Home . . . Again. She initially did try to get a record label
to release the disc, but eventually decided against it. With all the turmoil in the record
industry at the time, she couldn't bear the thought of her music lying unreleased in a
warehouse somewhere. "People were losing their jobs left, right and center," she
said of the record business at that time. "I got great responses and everyone was
really positive, but the ones that seemed to be most positive about it ended up losing
their jobs within a few weeks of me speaking to them.
"That kind of worried me because the last thing I wanted was to have this sitting on
the shelf and being tied up with the legal department. So I just decided to sit tight on
it." In the long run, Zsiga might be better off distributing and promoting her music
through her label, Performance Anxiety Music. Though she said she "wouldn't be
adverse to having somebody step in and run with it now," she quickly reversed field.
"It would be nice to have that pressure off for a while," she said of the
prospect of a major label taking over promotion and distribution. "It's a pain in the
neck. To tell you the truth, it's the last thing I want to be doing is be thinking about
running a label. I just want to be out being an artist and doing my thing. "It's been
a great thing, too, because I like to know everything that's going on. I'm really nosy and
annoying like that. I can't just sit back and say 'OK, you do it.' As much as I say I'd
like to, it's not in my nature." The creative control has paid off as Home . . .
Again is an unqualified gem, a fact that radio stations are starting to notice. "It's
been a tough couple of years, but I think we're finally starting to break it out
there," Zsiga said. The single "'Better with You' has gone out to radio and
that's starting to pick up some serious airplay, which is fantastic. "A lot of
industry people sit on the fence until they see movement. You need those few people that
are prepared to put themselves out there and say 'Yeah, I believe in this.' I've been very
fortunate to have a couple of those people." Zsiga and her husband, Andrew, have
lived in Hamden for "five or six years" and have two young daughters, Ilana and
Eva. Motherhood was not a factor in her being "very actively involved" with the
New Haven-based Justice for Children International, which is working toward "the
abolition of child sex trafficking and exploitation," according to a JFCI insert
included in Home . . . Again. "It's just impossible not to be involved once you hear
about this problem," Zsiga said. "I mean, I don't think you have to have
children to be affected by that. It's such an appalling crime.
"Obviously, many of these individuals end up within the sex industry and
they're enslaved and it's so brutal and awful and there's so much that can
be done. Unfortunately, people think it's hard to do stuff about it because
it's so far away and the problem's so big, but there's so much you can do to
combat it. "It's kind of like, this is my mission now. I've been helping out
in various charitable organizations since I started out and this is the
first one that really clicked with me as the cause. I think everybody finds
their own cause at one point in their life and this is definitely it for
me."
On the Web: www.abigailzsiga.com; for Justice for Children
International, visit www.jfci.org.
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