Tirzah

Tirzah builds her sound on foundations of U.K. garage, grime, and British R&B, matching plainspoken singing and lyrics to boundary-pushing arrangements. Across releases her palette shifted from the playful dance-pop single "I'm Not Dancing," an underground favorite from 2013, through the spellbinding and unfiltered R&B of her first album Devotion in 2018, to the hazy blend of rock textures and electronics on Colourgrade in 2021. Through every phase the closeness and directness of her writing stayed central, clearest in the dreamlike club pieces that make up the 2023 album trip9love…???.

Raised in Braintree, a modest Essex town in England, Tirzah Mastin absorbed the voices of Barry White, Tina Turner, and Whitney Houston. A harp recital she attended at age seven prompted formal lessons on the instrument. At thirteen she won a scholarship to the Purcell School for Young Musicians in Watford, north of London. There she met Levi, then studying violin, viola, and composition; the pair soon began taping early versions of her songs, with Levi supplying guitar in the school’s technology room. Feeling limited by the rigorous curriculum, Mastin chose instead to pursue textile design at the London College of Fashion after graduation, while Levi formed Micachu & the Shapes and established himself as a respected composer.

Mastin and Levi kept recording casually and began issuing material in the early 2010s. Levi aired a rough cut of their debut track "I'm Not Dancing" during a 2012 Boiler Room DJ appearance; shortly afterward Tirzah joined Greco Roman, the label co-founded by Hot Chip’s Joe Goddard and also home to Disclosure. The label put out I'm Not Dancing—an EP that fused garage rhythms with an unexpected recorder sample—in August 2013. Around the same period she released the spontaneous-leaning mixtape What’s the Time.

Tirzah followed with the April 2014 No Romance EP, which presented a somewhat tighter iteration of her approach. The next year she and Levi delivered the Make It Up EP on Greco Roman and joined Micachu, Mumdance, and Nozinja on a limited 12". Additional guest spots appeared on Dels’ 2014 album Petals Have Fallen and Baauer’s 2016 release Aa. Mastin and Levi also launched the dance side project Taz & Meeks, enlisting Brother May and Coby Sey for the 2018 Curl EP. That year Domino Records issued her widely praised debut album Devotion, again produced and mixed by Levi with further mixing from Kwes.; the record included another appearance by Sey, leaned into flowing R&B textures, and carried more openly personal lyrics, reaching number 22 on the U.K. Independent Albums chart.

After contributing to the track "Today" on Mura Masa’s 2020 album R.Y.C., Mastin reconvened with Levi and Sey—now a core collaborator—for Colourgrade, a still more ethereal and exploratory collection shaped by themes of motherhood, family, and community. Released in October 2021, the album climbed to number six on the U.K. Independent Albums chart. That same year Tirzah and Sey supplied remixes for Lafawndah’s The Fifth Season (Versions) EP; Lafawndah reciprocated on the June 2022 remix collection Highgrade, which also featured contributions from Arca, Actress, and Loraine James.

In 2023 Tirzah joined Speakers Corner Quartet on "fix" and Sampha on Kwes.’s "Open Up," then issued her third album that September. Recorded by Mastin and Levi at their own homes and other locations in Kent and South East London, trip9love…??? drew inspiration from the liberating atmosphere of a night out, along with Scottish and Irish folk traditions, Morton Feldman, and Pi’erre Bourne, and was conceived as one continuous listening experience.