Tess Wiley

Daughter of a musician father and author/poet mother, Tess had music and songwriting laid in her cradle, as the Germans say. She decided to hold off with talking in favor of working on her singing voice at the age of two, adding "Create In Me a Clean Heart" and "Tender Shepherd" to her early repetoire. At the age of five she began playing the piano, violin at 12, and the guitar made its appearance at 14. The musical stylings of Slash were the goal at first, but hardcore riffing soon gave way to contemplative songwriting. Tess spent her high school years playing and singing in the band Nothing in Return as well as studying classical piano at a performing arts high school in Houston, Texas.From 1994-1995 she supported the band Sixpence None the Richer on their European and American tours and even contributed a track ("Disconnect") to their second record This Beautiful Mess. Wanting to make a go of it on her own, Tess began recording her songs under various names such as Splendora, phantasmic and Tess Wiley and her Orchestra. She also served as one of the voices for Velour100 on Of Colour Bright in 1997.Eventually love came to town and, when it left, took her with it. Tess married photographer/music video director/journalist/Hessenmob Skateboards CEO Christian Roth and followed him to his hometown of Giessen, Germany. Tess returned to America periodically, more specifically New York City, to record her first official debut record Rainy Day Assembly.Tess is now happy to be working with the Hamburg label Tapete Records. ____________________________________________________________ ____________Superfast rock and roll played slow and less is more. That was the motto for Tess Wiley’s third album due to be released in April 2007. A lot has changed in Tess’ life and music since the Texan released her last record “Not Quite Me” on Tapete Records. The most influential event was certainly the birth of her son Henry Fletcher in April of 2005. Tess soon realized that motherhood and creative productivity didn’t fit quite as well as the tiny diapers on her newborn baby’s bottom.And so, downsizing became a keyword. The recordings for the album “Superfast Rock n’ Roll Played Slow” took place without a band, somewhere between the washer/dryer, the record collection and the changing table in her apartment in Giessen. Without any real recording equipment except what she managed to borrow, Tess had to be particularly innovative when coming up with, for example, a beat for the song “Raise your hand”. There you’ll hear the whack of a fist on an upholstered Vitra armchair in lieu of a bass drum, keys in a metal cup simulating a snare drum and a glockenspiel that’s actually just a wine glass. Her son’s toys didn’t go overlooked, either, when it came down to finding the right sound. As an example for such a guerilla approach, Tess looked to her husband Christian Roth (photographer and creative head of Hessenmob Skateboards), who has always proven that a lack of means doesn’t make a goal unreachable when you’re creative. Having met in 1994 at a festival in Holland where Tess was playing with the group Sixpence none the Richer, the couple’s artistic cooperation goes one step further on this record: the song “Anette” was originally written by Christian from a man’s point of view, but his wife reworked it a bit, and now it’s a party hit at Tess’ normally quiet and melancholic concerts.You can truly feel the vastness of her homeland when listening to “Superfast Rock n’ Roll Played Slow”. If you close your eyes during songs like “Crying for you” (featuring Buddy Miller, guitarist and producer: Emmylou Harris, Shawn Colvin, Solomon Burke) or “Messed up everywhere blues”, you’ll hear anything but the “Sound of Middle Hessen”; rather something that Willie Nelson might listen to on the veranda of his farm while the sun paints the sky blood-orange as it lays itself to rest in the Texas Hill Country. The haunting cry of the singing saw on the instrumental “Slow”, played by Olivier Manchon (Sufjan Stevens, My Brightest Diamond), as well as the phantasmic santoor performances by Iranian guest musician Ghodi Giari, evokes a sense of longing otherwise conveyed by Tess’ voice. Musically, the artist seems to have found her home – somewhere between folk and country, right in the middle of Americana.Through improvisation and home-recording charm, Tess Wiley’s new record is more intimate. More private. Closer. And that’s the beauty of it: her music tells of emotions, great and small, as a fact of life, and her melancholic voice articulates these delicate states of heart without succumbing to cliché. When Tess Wiley sings, the melody whispers the songs that we know all too well and whose lyrics we thought we’d forever forgotten.__________________________________________________ ______________ Something Sweet and Real, Tess Wiley, From the Album 'Rainy Day Assembly ____________________________________________________________ ____.. width="425" height="350" ..