Tiny Vipers with Martin Freeman

Tormentor
Tiny Vipers - Dreamer (Live on KEXP)

Seattle's Jesy Fortino has performed under the name Tiny Vipers since her teen years. Honing her craft in punk houses and squats, Fortino's haunting folk elegies are as sparse as they are dense. People and times past wander through her songs like ghosts looking for a home, appearing and then vanishing into deft guitar playing that is reminiscent of John Fahey and Ry Cooder. Her first two full-length records, Hands Across the Void and Life On Earth (Sub Pop, 2007 and 2009, respectively) were masterworks of delicate, deliberate composition and instrumentation. Rarely has music this minimal made such a massive statement. Years of touring and critical acclaim brought Tiny Vipers a cult following. Despite this, she largely operates outside of the world of mainstream music. A series of incendiary experimental releases preceded her third LP Laughter (Ba Da Bing!, 2017). A collection of electronic tracks buried beneath a pane of frosted-glass tape hiss, Laughter shone a light on yet another facet of Fortino's prismatic musical identity. 2021's American Prayer EP saw a return to the acoustic music of her early releases, its three tracks setting an outstanding groundwork for her next full-length record. While Tiny Vipers has shared a stage with the likes of Patti Smith and Damo Suzuki, and has collaborated with Liz Harris (Grouper) as Mirrorring (releasing Foreign Body on Kranky Records in 2012), her artistic identity has remained as elusive and mysterious as her music. It is seldom that we encounter an artist as unique and singular as Tiny Vipers. Her upcoming full-length record is scheduled for release in 2025.

Martin Freeman a Buffalo, NY-based improviser, toolmaker and tinkerer working predominantly with sound and electronic circuits in the overlapping disciplines of instrument-building, installation, arts education and performance. His production practice concerns new ways of making music informed by deep investigations of electronic circuits and working methods that complicate the roles between performer, instrument and audience. As an educator he has taught art at SUNY at Buffalo and has led workshops in electronics at Eastman School of Music, Detroit School of Arts High School and Rhizome DC. He will perform on instruments of his own design.

Hallwalls Music Program is made possible through public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency, and a generous grant from the Cullen Foundation https://www.thecullenfoundation.org/