When people talk about the beginnings of the music scene in Athens, GA the discussion usually begins “The B-52’s, R.E.M, ....” Those who know will continue the list, “Pylon.” They were every Athens band’s favorite Athens band. Their musical naïveté, southern upbringing, art school smarts, and house-party roots exploded together to create something quite improbably amazing, hitting the listener on mental, physical, and spiritual levels simultaneously. On the surface, their angular guitar parts and propulsive rhythm section had something in common with UK post-punk bands like Gang of Four and PiL. But Pylon was more fun and less studied. And they had a secret weapon in Vanessa Briscoe Hay, whose inimitable vocal textures and phrasing defined the band’s sound for most listeners.

Pylon’s celebrated history came to a sudden end with the death of iconic guitarist Randy Bewley in 2009. Pylon was and always will be Vanessa, Randy Bewley, Michael Lachowski, and Curtis Crowe. It is a certainty that the band will not reform with a new guitarist.

But hey, kids. Everything is still cool! Vanessa has gathered members of Athens bands Casper & the Cookies, The Glands, and talented pianist Damon Denton to create Pylon Reenactment Society to perform for special occasions like Art Rocks Athens events and for the recent release parties for “PYLON LIVE.” Two short tours are planned this year to the Northeast and out West.

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. The angelic voice will pull you in close to share devastatingly beautiful and heart-breaking secrets, while shadowy figures dance in the background. This is music that envelops the listener and may transport you to another world or time. A magical 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 monastary and then the swamp in southern, coastal Georgia. Classically trained as a child, awakened by Grunge in the 90s, with chanting forever in her subconcious. She had always written instrumental compositions and poetry, but 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 staying busy as a studio/touring session player (Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven, T. Hardy Morris, of Montreal, Dave Marr, David Barbe, and many more…).  She released her debut album, King 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 consistant 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 collpased 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 perseverence. The honest, painted lyrics weave the mystical with personal experiences. But to Thayer, it’s all real. “I’ll feel like I have to just make this quilt out of these patches of visions I’ve collected and then suddenly the song is finished and I realize it’s all true...” We start to believe her that these seeminly 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. Regardless, once you’ve stepped into that pocket with her, you’re bound to want to return.