Faith Coloccia + Tashi Dorji
And Their Power Was Alive
(Whited Sepulchre)
Faith Coloccia has been a luminous presence in the region’s underground music scene for 20 years. She’s best known for the haunted folk music, isolationist ambient, and dilapidated-cathedral metal she creates in Mamiffer, with husband Aaron Turner. Her delicate voice carries a churchly grandeur ideal for the stoic, drone-based songs that form much of her catalog. Tashi Dorji is a Bhutanese national based in Asheville, NC—a bold guitarist whose output ranges from jagged twists on John Fahey’s American primitive stylings to fiery sheets of noise as both a solo performer and a collaborator with fellow avant-gardists.
And Their Power Was Alive elegantly merges these artists’ talents. The icy drone of opener “Excessive Yield” preps the listener for serious existential contemplation; when Coloccia’s wistful chant fades in, it acts as a gentle brain-cleanser. By contrast, “Short Lived Echo” sounds like a pop hit. Coloccia leads with a warm-hearted piano melody and sings a sweetly melancholy tune about ecological disaster and “cosmic horror.” Later, Dorji generates swelling guitar feedback signifying the catastrophic results of failed human stewardship of the planet. The coda is incredibly moving. On “Fires Three,” a poignant, circular piano motif and ghostly guitar feedback cohere into a momentous soundtrack to a crushing denouement.
Throughout And Their Power Was Alive, Coloccia offers up her vocals like a distressed angel. Beneath the stark piano-and-guitar duets (with occasional cameos by Turner on guitar and Nicholas Wilbur on keys and tubular bells), beautifully introspective melodies slide into subtly foreboding soundscapes.
Melanie Radford
For the Sake of Stillness
(Jealous Butcher)
The debut solo album by Built to Spill bassist Melanie Radford is miles away from that Idaho band’s big-sky indie rock. And that’s pretty cool. For the Sake of Stillness finds Radford—who also plays in Boise rock group Blood Lemon—burrowing inward in singer-songwriter mode, but instead of the usual acoustic guitar, she brandishes bass and incorporates field recordings. And that makes a huge difference.
On “Philadelphia,” Radford utilizes the bass more as a sculptural tool to forge rumbles, drones, and sighs than as a riff generator, and she puts the onus on her soft, unadorned voice to carry the song’s melody. “Hangin’ On” is as interiorized as Vashti Bunyan at her most intimate, with Lori Goldston contributing morose cello strains to the trepidatious bass line that’s the song’s spine.
The album’s most dissonant and unsettling song, “Back Again,” deploys synth to create a cosmic whir alongside Radford’s eerie bass susurrations. Stillness peaks on “Sink & Swallow,” which features Built to Spill’s Lê Almeida on drums and Jim Roth on pedal steel. This is a gorgeous, lilting country-rock arm-swayer that belongs in the canon.
It’s possible that the record’s introverted aura and unhurried pace were an antidote to the touring musician’s bustling life; Radford worked on Stillness while on the road with Built to Spill. Whatever the case, it’s an assured debut that promises more great, understated things to come.
Seattle-area musicians can send music to NewSeattleMusic@TheStranger.com for possible coverage.
