Bedroom Tapes

Tiny Vipers is the nom de melancholic folk of Seattle songwriter Jesy Fortino, whose laconic, almost primitivist ethos (a husky Nico-esque ugh thickens her soft alto) makes her among the most compelling — not exciting, but compelling — singers of the current post-folk revival. Her second full-length album for Sub Pop Records, Life on Earth, was released earlier this month, and her tour — like all her recordings — will bring Fortino to the Empyrean with just her guitar and haunting, spectral voice.

In fact, it isn’t until 24 minutes into Life on Earth that there is any other sound besides Fortino’s acoustic guitar and her mournful vocals, 24 minutes before a sinister rumbling starts in the middle of “Time Takes,” ushering in a deeper, more formless darkness. This rumbling, though it dramatically interrupts Fortino’s pristine loneliness, never threatens to derail or overwhelm the heart of the album: a hypnotic feeling created by the slow-moving stream of consciousness coming from the singer. Fortino says there’s nothing particularly intentional about the way she works.

“The bass part on ‘Time Takes’ was recorded my room,” she says. “Then we played the bass part over the track we did in the studio. I just thought it would sound cool.”

And though it sounds painstakingly crafted, the rest of the album was recorded in the same way.

“I just kind of do what I do,” Fortino says. “I don’t really know the outcome until it happens. I think that the process that I use to write is really highly intuitive… I allow songs to be pretty abstract.”

Indeed, Tiny Vipers works in moods and atmospheres, not stories or symphonies like, say, Cat Power or Joanna Newsome (though those are apt comparisons). Fortino doesn’t have a band, isn’t particularly interested in one — “I play alone, it’s easer that way” — and truly, it would be difficult for collaborators to follow her instinct-driven, meandering songs.

Tiny Vipers, clearly, is an intensely personal project, and it’s a wonder to behold the mystery of one artist’s relationship with her music. What’s most important to her, Fortino says, is “just being able to create something that’s your own, that nobody understands, and kind of going into your own little world for a while. … It’s nice to just be able to go into a place where there’s really no rules or limitations.” And Life on Earth makes life on Earth itself a little more like that.

Tiny Vipers at Empyrean with Lazarus, Le Train Train Quotideen and Mark Ward on Friday, July 17, at 7 pm. Tickets: $7. Call 838-9819.