The Stool Pigeon music newspaper

Gustav is the gender ambiguous moniker of Eva Jantschitsch, a Vienna-based, self-styled media artist and laptop songwriter. She recently released her second album, Verlass die Stadt [Leave The City], and it combines synthesised pop with her beautiful voice and politically charged lyrics.

Verlass die Stadt has a darker quality than Jantschitsch’s last record. “I had the feeing that everything around me had got really sad and people had tired of political activism,” she explains, “and I guess that was why I was a bit fatalistic when I wrote these lyrics. They are quite apocalyptic.”

By using a variety of languages, including French, German and English, Jantschitsch aims to have universal appeal. “On the first album I had a song called ‘Genua’, which was written in six different languages,” she says. “For me, songs somehow work better when I write them in languages other than German.”

The name Gustav comes from Jantschitsch’s desire to leave the audience guessing. Her mother suggested the (male) name because it’s what her father had called until she was three. Patently, he’d really wanted a son. “It was a good name to make people think I was maybe a band, or maybe a producer with a singer,” she says. “You know, sometimes people come up to me after a concert and ask, ‘Who produced the music?’ They recognise me only as the singer. No one would ask a guy the same question.”

But Jantschitsch thinks women are becoming more respected in the music industry. “There are such great female artists around at the moment like Santogold, M.I.A. and Laurie Anderson - she’s one of my favourites.”

When asked about possible comparisons between herself and Björk (electronic beats, haunting vocals), Jantschitsch says: “Well, I think her music is really fabulous. She’s a master - she does what she wants to do, and she’s become a superstar. I admire her, of course.”

Jantschitsch performs both solo and with her new two-piece (Elsie Mory, on keyboards, and Oliver Stotz guitar). “When the venues can afford the travel, then we play as a band,” she explains. “But mostly I do solo shows. The focus is not only on me when I play with the band, which I like, and I like having the possibility of making a real show out of a concert. That’s harder when I play alone.”

And does she hope Verlass die Stadt will encourage her audience to become political again? “In Austria, we’ve got a new socialist government, but they seem politically similar to the conservatives,” she says. “Most people are unaware, but they shouldn’t be.”