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New York City Underground Electric Folk

Tall Firs were formed in 1990 when teenagers Dave Mies and Aaron Mullan taught one another to play guitar over the telephone in Annapolis, Maryland. It took them eleven years to play a gig, and another five to finish this their debut record.

A near-telepathic nonchalance pervades the record. The interwoven melodies of the two guitars converse in a language that has evolved the unsettling familiarity of birdies on a remote island. The vocals, by turns stark and sly, hover amidst the proceedings. A motley cast of drum kits, organs, marching band castoffs, and random debris make occasional forays into the sound-field to do their part. As the record unfolds, melancholic incantations reminiscent of Joni Mitchell or Jackson C. Frank transition into open-tuning workouts of despair and beauty like Mississippi John Hurt throwing down with Wire.

In New York, now with drummist Ryan Sawyer as the third full-time Fir, the band has packed Lower East Side hotspot Tonic, been curated by Jim O'Rourke to perform at The Stone, and done gigs at dive bars, amphitheatres, and illegal loft spaces while maintaining a semi-residence at Williamsburg's scene-defining Union Pool. Tall Firs have shared bills with Sonic Youth, Oneida, Awesome Color, Samara Lubelski, P.G. Six, Tim Foljahn, and Corsano/Flaherty amongst other Brooklyn and New England weirdos.

More on the band members: Aaron Mullan (guitar/vox) was a longtime collaborator of now-infamous New Weird American Chris Corsano before spending several years recording albums for other people. Ryan Sawyer (drums/vox), hailing from Texas, was one of the first drummers in At The Drive-In. Since moving to New York in '97 he has recorded and/or played live with the likes of everyone from the Mekons to Massive Attack, TV On The Radio, and Fiery Furnaces. He is also a member of both Stars Like Fleas and Eye Contact. Dave Mies (guitar/vox) paid dues in the Baltimore scuzz-rock zone before bringing his world-weary guitar stylings up north.

On record and in person, the Tall Firs have the disarming presence of a dog-whisperer, and the unnerving triangular-cold-read of a shadow boxing cruee of mesmerists. This is the band guitarman/journalist Alan Licht says is "Beard-less contemporary rock at it's best."