Biography
The Philadelphia trio Birds of Maya favors a direct method when laying down its thunderous, unruly fusion of early-metal rumble, serrated garage rock, and saturated hard-rock force. Their performances, tracked at extreme levels onto heavily saturated tape, convey the sensation of originating inside a sweltering basement rehearsal room, which matches their actual process. From the 2004 album Vol. 1 through Valdez in 2021, the band’s catalog constitutes an exuberant din produced by driving guitars and vocals to the threshold where rock begins to collapse into noise.
The group coalesced in the early 2010s after guitarist Mike Polizze answered a notice placed by bassist Jason Killinger and drummer Ben Leaphart, who were seeking a player steeped in Blue Cheer and the Stooges. The three musicians began forging their sound through relentless, maximum-volume sessions inside a cramped basement space. Their debut, Vol. 1, assembled from recordings made between 2004 and 2006, emerged as a lo-fi barrage of manic guitar eruptions that folded classic punk and garage influences into the core Stooges–Blue Cheer template.
Several years elapsed before the next collection surfaced, drawn from an extensive archive of basement tapes. Ready to Howl, issued by Richie Records in the United States in 2010 and by Agitated in the United Kingdom in 2012, retained a murky, unrefined character while sounding marginally less distorted. Before that album appeared, Polizze had already started making four-track home recordings under the name Purling Hiss, a project that soon absorbed the bulk of his time and prompted him to form a live band featuring Leaphart on drums. During the resulting lull, Killinger launched the sludgy AOR outfit Spacin’. The original trio later reconvened to capture material for a third album, Celebration, whose overloaded looseness suited its 2013 release on Little Big Chief Records. Purling Hiss remained Polizze’s central focus; he completed the solo album Long Lost Solace Find in 2018, which Drag City issued in 2020, the same label that handled most Purling Hiss releases throughout the decade. In 2021, studio tapes recorded in New York in 2014 were retrieved and released as Valdez in mid-year.
The group coalesced in the early 2010s after guitarist Mike Polizze answered a notice placed by bassist Jason Killinger and drummer Ben Leaphart, who were seeking a player steeped in Blue Cheer and the Stooges. The three musicians began forging their sound through relentless, maximum-volume sessions inside a cramped basement space. Their debut, Vol. 1, assembled from recordings made between 2004 and 2006, emerged as a lo-fi barrage of manic guitar eruptions that folded classic punk and garage influences into the core Stooges–Blue Cheer template.
Several years elapsed before the next collection surfaced, drawn from an extensive archive of basement tapes. Ready to Howl, issued by Richie Records in the United States in 2010 and by Agitated in the United Kingdom in 2012, retained a murky, unrefined character while sounding marginally less distorted. Before that album appeared, Polizze had already started making four-track home recordings under the name Purling Hiss, a project that soon absorbed the bulk of his time and prompted him to form a live band featuring Leaphart on drums. During the resulting lull, Killinger launched the sludgy AOR outfit Spacin’. The original trio later reconvened to capture material for a third album, Celebration, whose overloaded looseness suited its 2013 release on Little Big Chief Records. Purling Hiss remained Polizze’s central focus; he completed the solo album Long Lost Solace Find in 2018, which Drag City issued in 2020, the same label that handled most Purling Hiss releases throughout the decade. In 2021, studio tapes recorded in New York in 2014 were retrieved and released as Valdez in mid-year.
Albums
Singles
