Biography
Having collaborated with underground alternative acts including Come, Live Skull, and Uzi, frontwoman Thalia Zedek has sustained an extended and distinguished path in music. A striking singer whose voice carries both wear and nuance alongside a guitarist whose approach spans quiet introspection and unstructured noise, Zedek has treated constant evolution as the defining trait across her catalog. From the raw force of her initial Live Skull recordings to the restrained reflection marking her solo releases in the 2010s, she has solidified a reputation as a versatile creator whose distinctive approach remains vivid regardless of setting. Her first solo statement arrived with the 2001 album Been Here and Gone, while 2008’s Liars and Prayers merged raw feeling with restrained arrangements and 2021’s Perfect Vision examined intersections between private experience and broader social forces.
Zedek entered music after shifting from Washington, D.C., to Boston in the late 1970s, leading the little-known groups White Women and the all-female Dangerous Birds, whose track “Smile on Your Face” appeared on the Sub Pop 100 compilation. She departed Dangerous Birds in 1983 to establish Uzi, which issued only the six-song EP Sleep Asylum in 1986 before dissolving. Soon afterward she joined the New York avant-noise ensemble Live Skull, contributing to releases such as the 1987 album Dusted. Returning to Boston in the early 1990s, Zedek formed Come with former Codeine drummer Chris Brokaw; the group’s initial Sub Pop single “Car/Last Mistake” preceded the full-lengths Eleven: Eleven in 1992, Don’t Ask Don’t Tell in 1994, Near Life Experience in 1996, and Gently, Down the Stream in 1998, after which the band disbanded.
That same year the Indigo Girls invited Zedek onto their multi-artist Suffragette Sessions Tour, where she tested fresh compositions that soon shaped her solo direction. The resulting 2001 debut Been Here and Gone moved freely among torch songs, folk, blues, and rock. The following year she issued the You’re a Big Girl Now EP on Kimchee Records, then signed with Thrill Jockey for 2004’s Trust Not Those in Whom Without Some Touch of Madness. On 2008’s Liars and Prayers she assembled her largest ensemble sound since Come’s era. Via followed in 2013 as another substantial survey of melancholy, and less than twelve months later the six-track EP Six arrived, built on minimalist frameworks and intimate lyrics while including a reading of Freakwater’s “Flathand.”
Eve appeared in 2016, its emphatic guitar lines and vocal phrasing supported by David Michael Curry on viola and Mel Lederman on piano. That year Zedek also launched the trio E alongside Jason Sidney Sanford and Gavin McCarthy, whose self-titled debut emerged in November. The group’s second album, Negative Work, followed in May 2018. Zedek returned that September with the solo album Fighting Season, a direct and articulate rock statement. Many of the same players reconvened for 2021’s Perfect Vision, a wide-ranging reflection on cultural fracture and enforced solitude.
Zedek entered music after shifting from Washington, D.C., to Boston in the late 1970s, leading the little-known groups White Women and the all-female Dangerous Birds, whose track “Smile on Your Face” appeared on the Sub Pop 100 compilation. She departed Dangerous Birds in 1983 to establish Uzi, which issued only the six-song EP Sleep Asylum in 1986 before dissolving. Soon afterward she joined the New York avant-noise ensemble Live Skull, contributing to releases such as the 1987 album Dusted. Returning to Boston in the early 1990s, Zedek formed Come with former Codeine drummer Chris Brokaw; the group’s initial Sub Pop single “Car/Last Mistake” preceded the full-lengths Eleven: Eleven in 1992, Don’t Ask Don’t Tell in 1994, Near Life Experience in 1996, and Gently, Down the Stream in 1998, after which the band disbanded.
That same year the Indigo Girls invited Zedek onto their multi-artist Suffragette Sessions Tour, where she tested fresh compositions that soon shaped her solo direction. The resulting 2001 debut Been Here and Gone moved freely among torch songs, folk, blues, and rock. The following year she issued the You’re a Big Girl Now EP on Kimchee Records, then signed with Thrill Jockey for 2004’s Trust Not Those in Whom Without Some Touch of Madness. On 2008’s Liars and Prayers she assembled her largest ensemble sound since Come’s era. Via followed in 2013 as another substantial survey of melancholy, and less than twelve months later the six-track EP Six arrived, built on minimalist frameworks and intimate lyrics while including a reading of Freakwater’s “Flathand.”
Eve appeared in 2016, its emphatic guitar lines and vocal phrasing supported by David Michael Curry on viola and Mel Lederman on piano. That year Zedek also launched the trio E alongside Jason Sidney Sanford and Gavin McCarthy, whose self-titled debut emerged in November. The group’s second album, Negative Work, followed in May 2018. Zedek returned that September with the solo album Fighting Season, a direct and articulate rock statement. Many of the same players reconvened for 2021’s Perfect Vision, a wide-ranging reflection on cultural fracture and enforced solitude.
Albums
