Birds Of Passage

New Zealand poet and musician Alicia Merz records as Birds of Passage, shaping expansive wintry drones around hushed, close-miked vocals. Drawing from Arvo Pärt, Nick Drake, and Leonard Cohen, her sound often feels delicate and suspended in air, yet the singing stays lucid and forthright, conveying yearning and isolation as it contemplates dreams and recollections. She seldom revisits vocal takes, believing the initial passes capture the most unfiltered emotion. Since the early 2010s the bulk of her output has appeared on the German imprint Denovali Records.

Merz launched the project in 2010 with the debut album Without the World, first issued by California’s Future Recordings. The following year Denovali signed Birds of Passage, re-releasing that debut while also issuing Dear and Unfamiliar (a collaboration with Leonardo Rosado), Winter Lady, and the Highwaymen in Midnight Masks EP. In 2012 Cooper Cult released the joint EP I Was All You Are with I’ve Lost. That same year Merz and Gareth Munday issued a full-length of loop- and sample-driven electro-folk under the name Brother Sun, Sister Moon. A 2013 split double-cassette from Watery Starve paired Birds of Passage with Je Suis le Petit Chevalier, Motion Sickness of Time Travel, and Aloonaluna. Denovali brought out the third solo album, This Kindly Slumber, in 2014. After a four-year hiatus Merz returned with The Death of Our Invention in 2018.