Tiny Vipers
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Life on earth: both a curse and a gift.
A new recording by Tiny Vipers calls out to the void for an answer or a reason. Tiny Vipers is Jesy Fortino, a musician living in Seattle.
Creating and performing the music for her new album with a singular approach, Life on Earth is a private vision unfolding, at times crystal-clear and at other times shrouded in a mystical fog. People and times past wander through these songs like ghosts looking for a home. And questions arise for anyone listening: Where did they go? Where have they been?
Since her last and first album, 2007’s Hands Across the Void, Fortino has been back and forth across Europe, on tours into and through the United States, transfixing audiences into a solemn hush. Her captivating performance on the Burn to Shine 5: Seattle DVD proved such a highlight that a still from it is the cover of that edition. Braving a world at times not ready to contemplate its own doing, she brings honesty to her live performances.
Recordings for the new album began at home and were then interpreted by Andrew Hernandez in a classic analog studio in Austin, TX. Retaining both the glow of her work on guitar and the strength of her voice, Hernandez has captured the organic nature mirrored in the concepts of the album. A special effort was made to keep the recordings as authentic as possible. Like much of her previous work, she uses the past as a lantern to illuminate the darkness of the future.
Transcending the mere folk tag (“She’s not telling stories; she’s after incantation and trance”—New York Times), Fortino leaves behind her contemporaries. The music has been deconstructed into an aether that floats beside the poignant lyrics. Drawing from disparate inspirational sources, from the avant-garde or country musician Townes Van Zandt, Fortino’s playing is no imitation. It stands as its own, giving a musical life to those themes that inhabit her lyricisms: love found and lost, places come and gone. The persona of this album stands like a mountain watching the world go by, changing so fast. The future annihilates the past, consuming it like a fire.
Yet this is no bleak dirge. There are triumphs hidden behind the sorrows. A shining hope permeates the threat of doom here. Desperation fades and leaves you free in the end.
Click here to download & listen to an audio track from 's album Bayou Deluxe: Campfire Resemblance & Aron
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Damien Jurado
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"Caught In the Trees" marks the dawn of a new era for Damien Jurado. It may not be a huge departure from some of his past albums musically, but lyrically Jurado has taken a giant leap forward and there is no turning back. Best known for his dark yet fragile first person fictional tales, Jurado now unlocks the door and invites us into his own enigmatic world with an energy and intensity that is all-consuming.
Jurado took a full year to make this record, longer than ever before, as he ran away from and eventually found himself in his own songs. He subsequently found refuge in sharing the songs with his closest friends and bandmates, Eric Fisher and Jenna Conrad. Having walked alongside him through this most challenging journey, the songs that came out of it are as much theirs as his. Jurado, Fisher, and Conrad collaborated on the compositions - some much more rocking than Jurado fans are used to, but ever as intense - and pulled in producers Kory Kruckenberg and Casey Foubert to contribute their own unique stylings.
Recording started in the summer months and the sweltering heat, and wrapped in the freezing temps of winter. (It is clear on first listen that two distinct seasons are represented through "Caught In the Trees" - an accidental metaphor perhaps?) There was laughter and there was introspection, and the result is a record that Jurado loyalists will find was worth the wait. And perhaps a reason to listen for those who have yet to give this bedraggled storyteller a chance.
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Lazarus
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coming soon...
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