Zera Marvel: Press

Zera Marvel has finished her first solo album titled, "Birds & Bullets Fly". The recording features her enchanting, sometimes low timbered, dusky voice audiences have come to love so much from her Tagging Satellite days. The song "The Carpenter," the first up on her MySpace player, is a definite lament of a ballad about a father gone so bad he shoots heroin and abuses animals. This is sad music, but not the kind that bottoms out on you. It's that interesting.

Recorded by Graig Markel (Marvel & Markel are married and work out of a studio named Recovery Room), a prolific and fine musician in his own right who has become a venerable veteran of the NW music scene in bands such as The Animals at Night, Marvel seems to have found a home in the slow and long, contemplative form of her songs.

A lonely slide guitar over acoustic strumming spike the intro to "Honeymoon," leading us into the story of a woman contemplating the next day on which she is to be married. This is an exploration of a would-be marriage gone quite awry and the subtle drumming during the bridge highlights the "crashing wreck" the relationship has become. It's seems a very well thought out arrangement using a monotone approach to the singing which reflects well the lack of emotion one can encounter after such a disastrous union.

I especially love the second verse: "Tomorrow is our honey moon, today I didn't quite understand, it was nothing like pretend, we said out loud, the lies we vowed." Marvel's voice is perfectly drained, sad and done on this bitter sweet torch song.

The music Marvel has written also has a definite "cowboy on the lonesome prairie" vibe going as well. That is not to say it's strictly country. It's definitely no where approaching "young country," so if that awful genre is not your thing, don't shy away at all. These are torch songs with a lonely cowboy sound.

This new work by Marvel is, by her own admission, a long time coming. She reportedly recorded at least 20 songs to get down to exactly what she wanted to end up on her debut solo record. You can hear the wrestling of contemplation that went into putting this record together.

Marvel has no upcoming shows listed on her MySpace profile page at the moment, but check back often and read her blog. There are highlights of her 5,000 mile tour in 12 days and other jottings of the journey she took to complete "Birds & Bullets Fly" as well as links to reviews and interviews and a cool link to a video documenting the recording the album to a song called, "People Like Us".

"The Zera Marvel"

Friday, Jan 18, 2008 with Jesse Sykes

Also on the bill Friday at the Tractor will be Zera Marvel and Shane Tutmarc. Zera has just finished recording a full length album. She sings low and serenely. The compositions are dark and long. There are gothic turns in her stoic stance and she shades country into night.

Zera talked about her recording and the show on Friday:

Are you psyched for Friday? That is such a good bill.

Zera: "I am excited and nervous. Sometimes I get nervous about shows. I can’t eat, I can’t sleep, I can’t think straight.

I will be playing with a full band:
Graig Markel - guitar, Johnny S. Bliss - drums, Doran Bastin - bass, Jon Hyde (Transmissionary Six) - pedal steel guitar, and Greg Panto (the Bad Things) - banjo."

What are the first thoughts out of your head about the recording you just did?

Zera: "To say I took my time recording this CD is kind of an understatement, but it took a while to find my direction. Have you ever seen the movie Driver 23 / The Atlas Moth? It is a documentary about an obsessive compulsive musician that plays in a really bad metal band, and it takes him about 7 years to record a CD. It’s kind of like Spinal Tap but it follows a real band, which makes it more sad than funny. When I watch that movie, sometimes it hits a little too close to home!"


How has it been since your previous band, Tagging Satellites broke up?

Zera: "After we broke up I didn’t think I would play music again. But I can’t help myself. I struggled for a while because in some respects it is easier writing with a full band, since there are others contributing song ideas. On the other hand it has given me more confidence to do it on my own, because it proves that for better or worse I can do it.

When I first started recording this CD the songs sounded harder and darker, like old Tagging Satellites songs. And I wanted to get away from that. I started playing a lot of acoustic guitar and that helped. When I was a kid my best friend and I had a “band” called the Country Cowboys. We put on shows for our parents. We were not really a band because we lip-synced other people’s songs, none of which were country, but our characters were. I feel like I am going back to my youth a little bit with this record - making up for what the Country Cowboys lacked!"


Where did you do your recording?

Zera: "I recorded the songs at the Recovery Room here in Seattle with Graig Markel - which translates to: in my basement with my husband! I mixed a few songs at Tiny Telephone in San Francisco with Aaron Prellwitz. I ended up only using one of the songs on the CD though. After my trip to San Francisco I wrote a bunch of new songs that were a better fit for the direction I was going in. I probably wrote / recorded about 20 songs and was able to pick from those the ones that meant something to me."


What’s the name of the album going to be?

Zera: "The name of the CD is Birds and Bullets Fly and it will be released in April. There are 10 songs. I am working on the artwork for the CD now."


Kick ass!

Zera Marvel
Dark And Dreamy Singer/Songwriter

5-Second Bio: The Rhode Island native used to front local rock band Tagging Satellites, which broke up in 2003. She's currently working on a solo career.
Latest Album: Marvel's self-released debut solo album comes out this September.
Why we love her: Her acoustic country is perfect back porch listening
Musical hubby: She's married to local singer/songwriter Graig Markel

Zera Marvel - Highway Swan

Zera Marvel. She’s drifting acoustic and dark. There’s a mist, and fireflies. Zera slows and points. Reminders on the wall. She’s been recording and mixing at Tiny Telephone in San Francisco. A new album is close.

“Then there's Marvel's voice, elusive as Hope Sandoval's but possessing some of Kendra Smith's wearied mystique.”
~ The Oregonian


"Zera Marvel shows her worth as a front-woman crafting her elegant P.J. Harvey cum Kristin Hersh croon."
~ Outburn


“Zera Marvel's vocals are dreamy but she also rears back with a vindictive gnarl when necessary. In a word, she is capable of honesty to the brutal degree like Nico employed so deftly years ago.”
~ cosmik.com


"Whereas on the noise tracks Marvel was vicious and animalistic, on these softer songs she is languorous and lazy, softly crooning."
~ Pop Matters


"[Tagging Satellites] singer Zera Marvel's low, agitated voice meanders dangerously through the guitar sludge, tape loops, feedback, and bass rumble, like a slithering snake about to thrust its fangs into your neck."
~ Epitonic.com