Biography

The subtle, largely acoustic music of Tiny Vipers is the project of Seattle-based singer/songwriter Jesy Fortino, a self-taught guitarist whose intricate playing and lonesome vocals give her work a uniquely haunting quality. Though she played in a few bands, Fortino found she worked better on her own, and began making music as Tiny Vipers in the early 2000s. She released a self-titled EP in 2004 and followed it with 2006's Empire Prism, which featured a nearly 30-minute song. That year, Fortino signed to Sub Pop after a friend who worked there brought her music to the label's attention. Her debut album for the label, Hands Across the Void, arrived in summer 2007. She followed it with second full-length Life on Earth and the Weak Moments of the Shadows EP (which collected songs from Tiny Vipers' Daytrotter session) in 2009. Collaborations with Balmorhea, the Sight Below, and Orcas followed, then Fortino worked with Grouper's Liz Harris as Mirrorring, who released their debut album, Foreign Body, in 2012. For a few years, Fortino put music aside as she studied to become a civil engineer at the University of Washington, but she continued to create musical sketches on her keyboard. She released some of them as the Ambience3 single, which appeared on Box Bedroom Rebels in 2015. Fortino continued in this direction on Tiny Vipers' Ba Da Bing debut, Laughter, a collection of pieces reminiscent of Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Dieter Moebius that arrived in 2017. ~ Heather Phares, Rovi