Interview

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When Anne-Laure Keib and Chan Marshall first met each other in the wee hours of the early '90s, the two women were living out their own respective versions of the classic New York story-struggling young artists trying to make it in the big city. Back then, Keib was a student and writer looking to get away from her native Paris, while Marshall, a transplant from the South, was still in the experimental stages of her music career.

More than a decade later, Marshall-better known as Cat Power-has gone on to become one of the most celebrated musicians of her generation, while Keib has forged a path of her own as one half of the French electronic duo Appaloosa. This year, these old friends will spend much of their time touring the world together, with Marshall performing selections from her recent covers collection, Jukebox (Matador), and Keib working with her group's latest material.

The two acts don't really sound alike-Marshall's music mixes soul and blues while Keib's is filled with minimalist electronics and romantic, Nico-esque vocals-but offstage, the two singers couldn't be more in tune with each other. Calling from the same hotel room in Portugal, they have the kind of easy, funny camaraderie that comes with having loved someone dearly through some very tough years.

T. COLE RACHEL: When did you guys first meet?

CHan Marshall: We can't remember if we were 23 or 20. But I do know that I was with an old friend, and he said, "Oh, look at that girl, she's so beautiful." He was too chicken to go talk to her, so I ran up to her and said, "Hi, are you from Germany?"

ANNE-LAURE KEIB: I was like, "No, I'm French!" I was almost, how do you say . . .

CM: Insulted?

ALK: Not insulted, but I was very proud to say I was French. You know how French people can be pretentious.

CM: We decided to go play music, remember? We played bass and a Moog at that time.

ALK: Yes. Chan was also playing drums, and our friend Marc Moore was playing guitar really loud.

TCR: You were both living in the East Village?

CM: Anne-Laure was going to the New School at the time.

ALK: Yeah, I was not doing music stuff so much. I was writing lyrics, actually. Then this guy gave me a bass, but I was not very serious. I had no intention of being an artist. I don't even know what it means to be an artist.

TCR: You were a writer, as well.

ALK: Yeah, but it's like, "Oh, I'm an artist, I'm a writer, I'm a musician." I had a lot of-

CM: She never wanted to say she was a writer. I just started calling her that when she started writing hundreds of pages.