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The teenage synth-goth duo Shell made its debut at Team Gallery in New York in January 1999. Marianne Nowottny (right, in the picture below), who also has her own solo career, performed with her friend and sometime songwriting partner Donna Bailey (left). The pair brought an entourage of their high school friends, who hung out on the periphery of the much older, black-clad art crowd. Shell's concise, minor-key ditties, played on cheap Concertmate keyboards and echoing early-'80s neuromantic pop (with a major dose of goofing around) were a hit with the audience, and the girls went on to play a number of New York area venues, including Tonic and Maxwell's. They're living in separate cities now and future gigs seem unlikely, but fortunately a number of their songs were documented by the Abaton Book Company on the CD Shell is Swell (available through amazon.com).
Below is a retroactive design for their CD cover. I did the drawings a couple of years ago with MSPaint as a bit of spontaneous fan art (working freehand from photos by Mark Dagley); they were considered for the CD cover but ultimately rejected by the girls (sob) in favor of a drawing of Marianne's. Abaton came up with the idea of abutting the pictures and centering them on the cover. I added the type recently and suggested the alternate title ("Mausoleum" is one of Shell's more characteristic songs). The package looks a bit indie-corporate for the pair, but the drawings were a true believer's way of conveying his enthusiasm for two swell musicians.