ZOE MUTH

Staffer Dennis had been playing her in the kitchen all the time, and then we got the phone call asking if she could play here last fall. If you build it, they will storm your kitchen.  Now she is back again.

First making her name in the Pacific Northwest, where she’s been called “Seattle’s Emmylou,” and heralded as one of the best songwriters to come out of Washington State, Muth has spent the last three years touring across the U.S. and Europe.  She now lives in Austin.

With a voice unadorned and almost conversational, Muth makes the every day more clear and compelling: “I don’t want to die where the sleeping dogs lie, and the silence is stronger than stone. If I have to wander, through the lightning and the thunder, must I always go alone?” she sings on “Somebody I Know”, a standout duet featuring legendary Texas songwriter Bruce Robison. It’s an end of the world lament beckoning the listener to follow along: “We’ll haunt the hidden places, like the embers in the afterglow.”

World of Strangers, her newest album,  is slow building and spacious, often dream-like and fearless in its demand of your time and attention. Muth has taken risks for the sake of the song, asking the listener to let go of expectations. And while the album sometimes begs you to two-step and waltz, more often than not, what it wants is for you to turn up the volume, turn the lights down low and just listen.

Praise for 2012’s Old Gold:

“Muth sings like a lost lamented Carter sister . . .Her decidedly un-Joplin-esque take on ‘Get It While You Can’ is an inspired highlight.”
-Vintage Guitar Magazine

Praise for 2012’s Starlight Hotel:

“With a haunting voice that treads soul and country and can only be described as a cosmic americana, Zoe Muth delivers songs that sound like vintage country classics.”
– Twangville

“We rarely talk about country music as being “soulful” or having “soul”, but thank god Zoe Muth is here to change this…the gentle truth of her songwriting and the softness of her voice lend a weight to the music that gives Starlight Hotel, a true feeling of soulfulness… an astonishingly good songwriter.”
– No Depression

“Muth has gifted the world with a collection of music that is straight no chaser . . .Just when you start to believe that they just don’t make ’em the way they used to, Zoe Muth and the Lost High Rollers come along to restore your faith.”
– Country Standard Time

“It’s clear, unforced passion, “not for the jet set, but the old Chevrolet set,” that informs all of these songs, along with a high, pure voice that rises to Iris Dement and Patty Griffin territory…There isn’t a bad song on this album…honky-tonk comes so naturally to the young Muth, along with a charming drawl…”
– The Billings Gazette

‘Starlight Hotel is one of those albums that you need if your first exposures to country music came from the static-y radio in the cab of your dad’s old pickup truck… essential listening.’
– ninebullets.net