It’s a shame that Tiny Vipers will be stuck inside a club. The
Seattle duo should be outdoors—perhaps somewhere like the Skidmore
Bluffs around sundown—where an audience can sit, gaze up at drifting
clouds, and free their toes to mingle with the unkempt grass as the
soft, ghostly folk floats on by. “Around campfires used to be the only
way I would play,” says singer Jesy Fortino, whose voice blends Chan
Marshall’s sultry with Joanna Newsom’s sprite. “Or little shows in my
apartment. I’d have people over and play in my kitchen.”
But now, after
being picked up by Sub Pop, those intimate shows may be a thing of the
past. The taste-making Seattle label just released Tiny Vipers’ first
proper album, Hands Across the Void. A lovelorn, ghostly
wanderlust, the Tiny Vipers aesthetic is drawn from the natural
environment. “I love, love, the Northwest,” Fortino swoons. “Probably
because I’m from Texas. When I moved here [to Seattle] it was so
wonderful and green. I’m just totally enchanted by this place.
“We
lived in San Antonio, and in Texas, you know, there’s nothing. Here I
was blown away by how much empty space there was—a different kind of
empty space than desert.”
Indeed, Tiny Vipers exist somewhere in that
emptiness. In between the day and night sky, the real and surreal,
between love and lust, the trees and the clouds. Accordingly, the
arrangements on Hands are exceedingly sparse—slow, deliberately
plucked acoustic guitar arpeggios are lightly colored by mellow
suggestions of electric guitar, cello, and bass—usually only one at a
time.”
I’m a huge fan of really simple, really minimal music,” Fortino
says. “It’s what I like in art. It’s everything, even in the way I
dress.”
Free from clutter, Fortino’s voice weaves between the breezy
light and dark structures like a translucent curtain dancing over an
open windowsill, rarely imposing, but diffusing and spreading a song’s
light evenly across the room. And maybe, if you close your eyes tight
enough, you’ll be able to see the sky, even if you’re inside.