** Update: This show is tonight - Friday, Jan 18th.

Also on the bill Friday at the Tractor will be Zera Marvel and Shane Tutmarc. Zera has just finished recording a full length album. She sings low and serenely. The compositions are dark and long. There are gothic turns in her stoic stance and she shades country into night.

Zera talked about her recording and the show on Friday:

Are you psyched for Friday? That is such a good bill.
Zera: I am excited and nervous. Sometimes I get nervous about shows. Sometimes I can’t eat, I can’t sleep, I can’t think straight.

I will be playing with a full band:

Graig Markel - guitar, Johnny S. Bliss - drums, Doran Bastin - bass, Jon Hyde (Transmissionary Six) - pedal steel guitar, and Greg Panto (the Bad Things) - banjo.

Photo: Troy Critchlow. Styling: Bellatrix Studio.

What are the first thoughts out of your head about the recording you just did?
To say I took my time recording this CD is kind of an understatement, but it took a while to find my direction. Have you ever seen the movie Driver 23 / The Atlas Moth? It is a documentary about an obsessive compulsive musician that plays in a really bad metal band, and it takes him about 7 years to record a CD. It’s kind of like Spinal Tap but it follows a real band, which makes it more sad than funny. When I watch that movie, sometimes it hits a little too close to home!

How has it been since your previous band, Tagging Satellites broke up?
After we broke up I didn’t think I would play music again. But I can’t help myself. I struggled for a while because in some respects it is easier writing with a full band, since there are others contributing song ideas. On the other hand it has given me more confidence to do it on my own, because it proves that for better or worse I can do it.

When I first started recording this CD the songs sounded harder and darker, like old Tagging Satellites songs. And I wanted to get away from that. I started playing a lot of acoustic guitar and that helped. When I was a kid my best friend and I had a “band” called the Country Cowboys. We put on shows for our parents. We were not really a band because we lip-synced other people’s songs, none of which were country, but our characters were. I feel like I am going back to my youth a little bit with this record - making up for what the Country Cowboys lacked.

Where did you do your recording?
I recorded the songs at the Recovery Room here in Seattle with Graig Markel - which translates to: in my basement with my husband! I mixed a few songs at Tiny Telephone in San Francisco with Aaron Prellwitz. I ended up only using one of the songs on the CD though. After my trip to San Francisco I wrote a bunch of new songs that were a better fit for the direction I was going in. I probably wrote / recorded about 20 songs and was able to pick from those the ones that meant something to me.

What’s the name of the album going to be?
The name of the CD is Birds and Bullets Fly and it will be released in April. There are 10 songs. I am working on the artwork for the CD now.

Kick ass.
I will try.