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By Daiana Feuer   Photography by Jenny Lang

09/19/07 :: URB 149

The pursuit of fun has proved to be a successful artistic method for Thunderheist. Grahm lived in Montreal and Isis in Toronto. They were MySpace friends. “He accidentally sent me a remix he made for Spank Rock,” tells the lady on vox, “and I spit over it.”
    “Anywhere there were gaps in the vocals, she was like, ‘Mwew, mwew mwew,’” Grahm says, using his disposable coffee cup as a mic. The chemistry was clear. “So I started cranking out beats and sent them to her.” They went into their first show having never played in the same room.
    Earning a rep for her onstage antics, Isis trades shots for lap dances, gets the crowd hyped and provokes dirty dancing by showing how it’s done. “Our live shows got people talking,” Grahm explains contently.
    His partner tends toward bluntness with her imagery: “We make a very strong effort that when you come to the show, someone’s getting pregnant.” It’s a worldview. “I’m 21 years old; I want to party.” Isis considers it her duty to incite a degree of primal mayhem. She takes it to heart when girls embrace their sexuality and dance it out with her.
    Thunderheist’s tempo tends to get almost aerobic-instructional. Isis’s flow propels forward as Grahm moves through buildups and breakdowns that take us back to times of yore (like the ’80s and ’90s...) but are new. “Early Detroit techno has been an influence on my producing,” reveals Grahm. It shows. And with their first 12-inch coming out on Bigfoot Records, Grahm is excited: “We’ll finally be able to send stuff out to DJs.”