Something To Run From

Portland singer-songwriter Tonya Gilmore is a master of musical suspense. In her EP, Something to Run From, she engages the power of the pop song to haunt, to float and whisper, to draw you up close before she goes in for the kill. The album is musically playful and many of her songs are so infectiously catchy they have a tendency to stick in your ear, where they can subconsciously reprogram your woozy mind. But the singability of her hooks only serves as a contrast to the dark depth of her lyrical vision. It is the sound of a single light bulb beaming incandescent light, swinging metronomically over half-lit faces. A singer can only go as far as her voice will carry her, and Tonya's is that rare voice capable of connecting honestly with the full range of experience. She can be as soft and delicate as a child, without a false note of sentimentality, or as powerful as a full church choir at the gates of hell. And everywhere, her voice is true.