Lilly Hiatt's third LP, Trinity Lane, is an intensely personal, autobiographical 12-song set produced by Michael Trent of Shovels & Rope, who is also featured as a musician throughout and joined by his wife and Shovels & Rope partner Cary Ann Hearst for backing vocals on album track "Everything I Had." Citing the Pixies, Breeders, Dinosaur Jr., and her favorite, Pearl Jam as influences, Hiatt’s love of the ‘90s alt-rock she was raised on shines through with distressed guitars and urgent backbeats – but there is also something distinctly Americana lurking in the songs. Of the album, Hiatt says, "Love will take you to the darkest places but also the most honest places if you let it. Learning how to love myself is something I’ve always been lousy with, and I spent some time on that. I thought about my sobriety, what that means to me, the struggles I’d had throughout the years, since I was a 27-year-old and hung up my toxic drinking habit. I thought about my mother, who took her own life when I was a baby, not far from my age at 30 years old, and I related to her more than ever. As you can see, there was plenty of time spent on my own. I didn’t talk to that many folks, albeit a few close friends, and leaned into my family. I stayed away from men, and danced alone in the evenings, looking out my window observing my humble and lively neighborhood. I found power in being by myself."

Although Brandy Zdan calls her new, self-titled album her full-length “debut,” there’s no mistaking this seasoned singer-songwriter for any kind of rookie. For the better part of the last decade, the native Canadian — now living in Nashville, TN— has garnered acclaim as half of the gothic folk/roots duo Twilight Hotel, with two albums, 2008’s Highway Prayer and 2011’s When the Wolves Go Blind, nominated for prestigious Juno Awards (Canada’s Grammy), as a formidable multi-instrumentalist (touring and recording with the Americana all-girl band the Trishas), and even as a solo artist (with LoneStarMusic hailing her 2013 Lone Hunter EP as “a one-woman tour de force.”) But according to the artist herself, all of that was merely a prelude to the aptly-titled Brandy Zdan, the most focused expression of her musical identity to date.   As brought into vivid focus on Brandy Zdan, produced by Teddy Morgan in Nashville, TN, featuring a cast of musicians including Carl Broemal (pedal steel) and Tom Blankenship (bass) of My Morning Jacket and drummer Richard Medek (Alternate Roots, John Doe). That vision showcases not just her strong vocals and guitar, steel and keyboard playing, but an affinity for writing mature indie-rock and pop songs with hauntingly gorgeous melodies and edgy arrangements. Ribboned with wide swaths of warm guitar and chilly blue atmosphere, the album buzzes with static overdrive and a bracingly raw emotional honesty. From the assertive opening charge of “Back on You” through to the electronic pulse of the gauntlet-throwing closer, “More of a Man,” its 11 originals fit together seamlessly to form a self portrait of an artist in full, confident flight. And if the result feels more like an arrival than a “debut,” as far as Zdan herself is concerned, it’s all the same.  If you wanna be a stickler about such things, go ahead and take Brandy Zdan to task for having the cheek to call her self-titled new album a “debut.” As a general rule, if not always by strict definition, that handle is usually reserved for the first entry in an artist’s catalog, and Brandy Zdan just happens to be its namesake’s eighth release in a recording career that just passed its 10-year anniversary. Granted, four of those previous albums were officially duo projects, and the three she released under her own name — 2007’s Your Words & the Weather, 2013’s Lone Hunter, and 2014’s Instrumentals 1: Heart Theft — were really only EPs, so one can allow Zdan a little leeway in calling her latest release her “full-length solo debut.” But there’s no mistaking this seasoned singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist for any kind of rookie.   “I guess I do almost have an unfair advantage, going in to make my first solo record with all that experience,” Zdan admits with a laugh — and more than a hint of understatement, given that she’s been performing for nearly half her life, going back to her first solo acoustic coffee house gig in her native Winnipeg at 15. She went on to spend the better part of the last decade touring and recording with fellow Canadian songwriter and guitarist Dave Quanbury as Twilight Hotel — a gothic-folk duo whose last two albums, 2008’s Highway Prayer and 2011’s When the Wolves Go Blind, were both nominated for Juno (Canadian Grammy) Awards for Roots & Traditional Album of the Year. (“We didn’t win, but that didn’t matter,” she says with pride. “It was still a really big deal to me because we didn’t have a manager or agent or anybody working for us, which means the records got nominated solely on their artistic merit.”) When the duo split shortly after moving to Austin, Zdan hooked up with the all-girl, Texas-based Americana combo the Trishas as the band’s lead guitarist and utility player (lap steel, accordion). She didn’t sing a note herself with the group, but embraced the opportunity to keep her chops in practice while playing and touring with friends — all the while quietly “plotting” for the next stage of her own musical journey.   “All of that stuff led me to know exactly what I want,” explains Zdan. She calls the results, as captured on the aptly titled Brandy Zdan, the most focused expression of her musical identity to date. “It’s just completely me. I’ve been shaping this vision of my own personal musical statement now for years, and I think what makes this my real debut is just the fact that I was able to completely fulfill that vision. For me, that’s the greatest success that you can hope for when you make a record.”    The vision Zdan speaks of was first glimpsed on Lone Hunter, the six-song teaser she recorded shortly after the Trishas went on indefinite hiatus. Hailed by Lone Star Music Magazine as a “one-woman tour-de-force,” the EP showcased not only Zdan’s prodigious instrumental skills (guitar, steel, Wurlitzer, synth, drums and percussion), but her equally strong vocals and  affinity for writing and arranging mature pop songs with hauntingly gorgeous melodies and edgy arrangements. On Brandy Zdan, that sound and vision is writ large on a widescreen canvas, ribboned with wide swaths of warm guitar tones and shades of chilly blue atmosphere and buzzing with static overdrive from the assertive opening charge of "Back on You” through to the electronic pulse of the closing “More of a Man.”   “This is very much an indie-rock and pop record,” says Zdan, readily admitting that it’s a far ways from her more traditional Americana roots. “I don’t know really how I got to this point, but over time I just started slowly drifting away from that. I think just my love of guitar led me to appreciate a really wide range of music. I mean, you don’t want to make the same record over and over, right? You always want to try to figure out what the next thing is.”   Indeed, it was that searching spirit that sparked her move from Austin to Nashville a year ago. “I like to get out of my comfort zone every couple of years, and it’s been great,” Zdan explains. “The majority of the songs on this record were written after I moved here, which is interesting, because I think it was being around such a conservative musical world that made me want to get even more fucked up musically! The contradictory situation was really a very positive thing.”   So was her good fortune in meeting a kindred musical spirit in producer Teddy Morgan, a seasoned guitarist and recording artist in his own right who helped Zdan bring her vision into clear focus at Nashville’s Creative Workshop. In addition to Morgan and Zdan (who played guitars, lap steel, piano, keys, omnichord, and percussion), the sessions also featured Carl Broemal (pedal steel) and Tom Blankenship (bass) of My Morning Jacket, drummer Richard Medek (Alternate Roots, John Doe), and Little Brave (aka singer-songwriter Stephanie Macias, whose eclectic drumming, keyboards, and background vocals have made her Zdan’s go-to musical companion on the road for the last two years).   “It really feels like a band record, which is what I wanted,” enthuses Zdan. “We set up all these different stations in the studio, like ‘keyboard world’ and ‘guitar land’ and ‘drum world,’ and we all kind of went around to each one throughout the 15 days that we were recording. It was so much fun!”   As collaborative as the studio sessions were, though, Zdan wrote all 11 songs on the album solo. There are relationship songs (“Back on You,” “Love to a Ghost,” “More of a Man”), songs both cryptically and unabashedly about sex (“Courtship of Wild Horses,” “What It’s All For”), songs about the up-and-down, roller coaster dichotomy of life (“Median Artery”), and songs about songs about all of the above (“Only the Sad Songs,” “Running for a Song”). And true to the album’s name, all of them fit together to form a seamless, unflinchingly honest — and liberating — self portrait.    “This is me really finding my voice,” Zdan says. “And not just finding it, but finally being able to present it to the world — which I don’t think I was ever really ready to do up until this point. One of the main themes that I kept coming back to with these songs, and really have been ever since Lone Hunter, is the idea of trying to figure out how to be on my own. That’s actually that’s how I started out, as a teenager — I was out on my own playing my songs for a good four years until Twilight Hotel happened and kind of took over. And I’m glad that it did, because I learned a lot about different sounds and songwriting and playing guitar from that whole experience … but because I was in that duo for so long, it got to where that became my identity.   “It’s so funny how it works, really,” she continues. “Because now I’ll look back and think, ‘How did that idea ever even come into my head? At what point did I actually think that I wasn’t good enough to do this on my own?’ But after playing with someone for eight years, it’s just something you kind of get used to, and then you have to break that habit in order to start out again on your own. But I’m actually really grateful that I’ve been able to go through that whole process, because it just forces you to work all that much harder to find your own voice. And in the end, that’s really all we have to offer the world: You can’t try to be anything but the greatest version of yourself.”   -Richard Skans

"It’s rare that a song strikes so perfect a balance between foreboding and sensual, but Thayer Sarrano gets it just right on “Shaky,” the title track from her new album. The tune is a study in contrasts, pitting hard edges against the soft allure of suggestion as Sarrano wraps her whispery drawl around a flat, forceful rhythm while vaporous tendrils of steel guitar float past." - Paste Magazine "there is an aura of “southern gothic” via twangy guitars, deep woodsy echoes and a rhythm like cautiously trudging through those woods. But she also exudes a patina of the urban, opiatic tenor of ’90s gaze-girls like Opal or Mazzy Star." - CMJ "A siren of the cypress swamp, Athens, Georgia’s Thayer Sarrano beckons you into the darkness on the throbbing “Touch My Face.” Evoking the mystical side of Stevie Nicks, overdriven guitars guide the listener through meandering paths that follow Sarrano’s smoky coos to what one can only hope is a mystical communion.” - Bucketful of Nails "Thayer Sarrano is a force to be reckoned with in the ever-fertile Athens, Georgia scene, having worked as a touring and session musician with Cracker, Camper Van Beethoven, T. Hardy Morris, of Montreal, Dave Marr, Kuroma, and David Barbe, among numerous others. This haunting track is taken from her upcoming third album, Shaky, a tour de force of Gothic Americana...We love it."- Big Takeover ------------------------------------------ Thayer Sarrano is forging her own path into a southern- psych-dreamland, bottling up ghosts and bringing them to life through her ethereal desert rock hymns. The tones tremble and bend, layered in swirling atmospherics of a place that is melancholic and haunting, yet bursting with heavenly light. With her latest release, Shaky, The Athens, GA multi-instrumentalist sounds, more than ever, like where she is from. She grew up in a seminary/the swamp in southern, coastal Georgia. Classically trained as a child, awakened by Grunge in the 90s, with chanting forever in her subconscious, she had always written instrumental compositions and poetry. Songwriting came when she landed in the vibrant musical community of Athens, GA and began to collaborate with friends to form her own band, as well as establish herself as a studio/touring session player (Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven, T. Hardy Morris, of Montreal, Dave Marr, David Barbe, many more). Debut album, King was released in 2009 dubbing her “The new Queen of Shoegaze” - Americana UK. The sparse and raw album was recorded live in her living room in one day. Her follow up LP, Lift Your Eyes to the Hills , (2012), enters more complex arrangements and features the single “The Bend,“ written for Groninger Museum, The Netherlands, leading to consistent European touring. The record was produced by Thayer and Hank Sullivant (Kuroma, MGMT), and was an independent release as a charitable campaign for Nuci’s Space’s teenage rock camp, “Camp Amped,” of which Thayer is passionately affiliated. “Featuring heavily spiritual themes, it could have collapsed under it’s own weight, but ‘Hill’s manages to maintain a startling lightness of being.“ -Flagpole Magazine. Now, with Shaky, we see Sarrano at her bravest and most vulnerable. Written in an unstable period of much loss, Shaky is still a record of grace and perseverance. The honest, painted lyrics weave the mystical with personal experiences. We start to believe these seemingly abstract visions are really happening, and in this other world we see pictures we can relate to. Pictures of dissolving relationships in “Crease”, "your memory unties my cells/ it breaks the line from your heart to mine…” Of the elusive in title track, "I trace your echo I follow your lead/ you’re shaky shaky but you settle me.” Of the search for something greater in “Glimpses,” “there’s a world at the same time as this one/it’s bright it trembles it glistens,” and of the beautiful ether in “Lost Art,” “their hands are open, call to the wild/ layer landscapes, breaking the sky/ I remember them from when I was a child/ it’s the same little image from inside my eyes…“  Dovetailing the thick twang of the country with the airy, echoing, spacious feeling of an empty church, Sarrano has carved out a pocket in which her otherworldly music has room to breathe. Or perhaps the pocket was already there and Sarrano stumbled upon it, becoming a vector for something deep and soulful and strange.