Friday, September 12th, 2025
$15 Advance // $15 Day Of Show
6pm Doors / 7pm Show
All Ages
NICK DELFFS
Nick Delffs is not a protest singer. Heâs not a gospel singer. Still, subversiveness and spirituality permeate Transitional Phase, his long-awaited second solo album. The product of five years of musical and personal growth that coincided with widespread social upheaval and a global pandemic â just as Delffs navigated first-time fatherhood, losing friends, and approaching his 40s; all weaved these songs.
Now Boise-based, Nick Delffs has been a beloved staple of Pacific Northwest music since emerging with his Portland-based band The Shaky Hands in the mid-2000s. It was clear then, as it is now, that he possessed an authenticâmaybe ancientâvoice. Transitional Phase is some of his finest and most vulnerable work. As the title suggests, itâs an album about opening oneself up to change, refusing the calcification that comes with age, and opting for wholesale transformation instead.
Incidentally, âTransformationâ is the title of the albumâs opening track. Itâs a looping, percussive opener, a dub-inflected signal that Transitional Phaseâs themes of change and transfiguration will not be limited to its lyrics. Like much of the new album, it was recorded in early 2020 at co-producer/collaborator Eli Mooreâs spacious and strange studio space on Whidbey Island, just outside of Seattle. However, when the sessions were interrupted by the onset of the pandemic, Delffs was forced to continue work back in Boise. He wrote constantly in the early days of the lockdown and entered a secluded vocal booth in his friend Z.V. Houseâs Boise studio. Delffs would send the resulting tracks to Moore, who often took songs in unexpected new directions. âEli added a lot,â Delffs says. âHe really put himself in it. Iâm not sure Iâd felt that level of deep collaboration and trust since the Shaky Hands days.â This process continued until Delffs had about three albums worth of material to sort through.
When writing, Delffs spends as much time as possible not listening to music. âThatâs really helpful for me,â he says, âbecause then it becomes this thing where I need music, I need songsâso I have to make them.â Delffs spent as much time thinking about cowsâyes, cows, like the John Gnorski-illustrated one on the albumâs coverâin the recording process as he did about any particular musical inspirations. Delffsâ recent trip to India, his second, was filled with cow admiration, and he picked up some cow fun-facts along the way. âThey just eat grass and somehow milk is created,â he marvels. âTheir poo and pee is antiseptic and medicinal!â
Still, the memory of music sneaks into the process, as Delffs found himself thinking about Tom Petty and Talking Heads, two artists he loved in childhood. One can hear echoes of David Byrne on the angular âPower and Positionâ, which also serves as a spotlight for the unmistakable accompanying vocals from LAKEâs Ashley Eriksson, whose voice has been heard by millions in Cartoon Networks âAdventure Timeâ credit music. Delffs enlisted more old friends to help flesh out Transitional Phase, including drums from Joe Plummer (The Shins, Modest Mouse, Cold War Kids), Dan Galucki (Wooden Indian Burial Ground) and Graeme Gibson (Michael Nau, Fruit Bats); keys from Luke Wyland (Au, Methods Body); strings and arrangements from composer Peter Broederick (Sharon Van Etten, M. Ward); and bass by Mayhaw Hoons, his old bandmate in The Shaky Hands.
The lush âBrave New Worldâ looks outward, juxtaposing a smooth groove from Galucki and Hoons with heavy themes of social upheaval. The titular phrase, often used ironically, is presented here with utter earnestness, underscored by Broderickâs beautiful string arrangement. Itâs one of three songs on Transitional Phaseâalong with back-to-back closers âA Perfect Stormâ and âEgomaniacsââthat slowly transforms into a prayer. The chanted and sung lines might feel like nods to some of Nickâs favorite artists (including Alice Coltrane, George Harrison, Yamuna Devi), but they arrive on the album naturally. Delffs has long been fascinated with Hinduism, and was deeply inspired by his India trip. âMeditating and chanting are such constant parts of my life these days,â Delffs shares. âThey came into this album like any other naturally flowing thought.â
âTransitional Phaseâ, the towering title track at the albumâs center, is a perfect marriage of two aesthetics. Delffs brings his vulnerable, misty-eyed self-examination to the collaboration; while Moore and Eriksson bring LAKEâs exacting, literate DIY Yacht funk. The result is transcendently, sonically free, like those particularly melodic moments spent with Peter Gabriel or Kate Bush. âIn-between words and dreams, thereâs only a line,â Delffs sings in seeming self-interrogation, âAnd youâve crossed over it so many times.â
The songs on Transitional Phase donât just cross that line, they dance on it. If the distance between waking life and dreams was narrow on Delffsâ 2017 solo debut Redesign, it is almost imperceptible here. He sings (and speaks, and occasionally chants) about the changing tides of our shared troubled world and all the mysterious worlds within. He yearns and searches and remembers, and occasionally wishes he could forget. He finds faith and loses it. And when he canât find that faith again, he admits on âAbsence of Love Songâ that heâll wait âon and on and on and on for another chance.â Maybe thatâs foolish. Or, as Delffs sings, âMaybe itâs today.â
ERISY WATTS
LA-based songwriter Erisy Watt crafts music that feels both rooted and expansive, weaving storytelling into a sound that shifts from earthy to cosmic, contemplative to playful. Described by No Depression as âwhat contemporary folk sounds like at its peak,â her songs draw comparisons to 60s and 70s songwriters, yet she explores the edges of her voice and acoustic guitar in ways that shake loose the tenets of any one decade or genre. Raised in Nashville and shaped by years in Portland, Erisy has spent the past decade performing across the U.S. and abroad. Sheâs currently touring in support of her latest album, not either or but everything.
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