Tiny Vipers Hands Across The Void by: Kieran O’Shea Mon:27-Aug-07 Label: Sub Pop Year: 2007 WB rating 65 out of 100

With her debut album Hands Across The Void, Seattle based songwriter Jesy Fortino has produced a starkly intimate album, revealing a uniquely different and alternative artist from the plethora of other Sub Pop offerings. Their latest signing has carved out a quiet and spatial landscape for herself to comfortably disclose her introspective thoughts and intimate observations, accompanied by sparse guitar arrangements and vocals.

Adamantly admitting she has no desire to make loud music and feels no pressure to do so, Fortino has cultivated a minimal method in both arrangement and delivery, incorporating varying textures and layered depth – such a feat is no easy task since the entire album really only consists of vocals and guitar. But by including subtle low end sounds and harmonies into the pot the mood of the album is given the space to flitter between dark and unsettling vibrations of doubt and disillusionment amongst peaceful charm and hope.

Fortino's voice and guitar blend seamlessly throughout the album. Favouring repetitive loops over intricate playing, songs become hypnotic exhibiting a melodic noise art quality. Opener ‘Campfire Resemblance’ demonstrates this successfully as a few notes ring continuously while her voice, flecked with an unmistakable southern curl, stretches over the sound. Her harmonies sit gently in the background with the microphone being placed further away from her, creating a surprising amount of depth; the background synthesisers hum and groan, with delicate sonic flurries forging a woodland ambiance that is both lonely and haunting.

The depth of the sound is dependant upon these techniques, the natural sound of the room and the microphone placement is changed quite audibly – becoming an important part of the recording process. It is also the addition of the electronic rumbles, cast their spell over the majority of the album, that allows for the feeling of space in such simplicity. This isn’t more evident than on stand out track ‘Forest on Fire’. Her vocals pierce an unsettling guitar riff coated with a natural echo. The song seems to be following a similar format of the tracks before until distant groans appear and develop a sense of natures humbling enormity. The electrical ambiance of the track vibrates with white noise and distortion, struggling forward until it envelopes the whole song and the guitar starts to vanish – creating a strikingly beautiful counterpoint when the guitar returns through the noise. This is where Hands Across The Void is at its musical strongest, its atmosphere made all the more astonishing due to its simplicity.

The album also offers changes in its recording and guitar styles, ensuring loops don’t become monotonous. One example is ‘On This Side’ which contains a much more urgent guitar (that is higher in the mix) than predecessors. By introducing these and other vocal changes Fortino demonstrates new textures and innovative touches. Similarly on ‘Aron’, a gentle lullaby picked rhythm is joined by surprising bluegrass harmonies, uncovering one of the lighter moments on the album. The sound of fingers sliding on strings and the pick keep the intimate feel consistent.

Fortino’s observations complete the album’s intimate nature, delivered with a gentle smoky tone and captivatingly breathy delivery. On ‘Shipwreck’ she sings, “We want to struggle and survive/We want to live ‘cos we know that life it’s beautiful/Though surreal at times/It’s still worth living”, as she tells of a family holiday turned ugly, displaying her inherent hope in front of the unfortunate inevitabilities of life. Fortino considers the complexities of human nature with both distaste and hope, the swing between the two gives a schizophrenic feel to the record’s lyrical content.

With all this in mind it is fair to say that Fortino has stretched all she can out of her debut album. Although strikingly beautiful and a wonderfully personal account, towards the end the format that flourished at the beginning starts to become a little dull. It’s also no coincidence that the length of the last two songs dramatically increases as this unfortunate turn is taken. Both ‘Swastika’ and ‘The Downward’ display the quiet guitars and the subtle harmonies characteristic of her sound, but there is little in the way to engage the listener. It appears that the shorter length of songs harbour her stark compositions more favourably.

Hands Across the Void will require a certain amount of patience from listeners and is an album to be listened to in its entirety. But there is no denying that Fortino has accomplished a great deal with very little.