Laughter [LP]

Vinyl LP pressing. 2017 release. Since the release of her sophomore album Life On Earth, Seattle-based musician Jesy Fortino has become a civil engineer. While studying at University of Washington to pursue a wholly new life direction, she wrote and recorded Tiny Viper's Laughter. Although it seems like a deviation from the singer-songwriter albums Fortino released on Sub Pop, it continues early works such as Empire Prism, and later instrumentals such as her 2015 contribution to the Ambience series (Box Bedroom Rebels) and her collaborations with Rafael Anton Irisarri and Liz Harris (Mirrorring / Grouper). Though previous works like Hands Across the Void and Life On Earth are collections of songs, just underneath their façade simmers a raw emotional expression that goes beyond words. Laughter is the result of experiments deconstructing pop tropes. Fortino takes inspiration from early electronic pioneers like Florian Fricke of Popol Vuh, as well as the raw experimentation of '80s proto-industrial tape culture. Additionally, she carries the seemingly disparate influences of Slava Tsukerman's Liquid Sky soundtrack and Meredith Monk's exercise in turning the human voice into a spectral instrument. The apprehension that comes along with attempting something new and challenging is captured in the fragile structure of these compositions, which threaten to fall apart almost as soon as they come together.