RESCHEDULED | Chaparelle

In a harmonious union, Texas-based musicians Zella Day, Jesse Woods and Beau Bedford come together to reveal their highly anticipated collaboration, “Chaparelle.” Esteemed for their exceptional vocal prowess and celebrated contributions to their distinct genres, this partnership channels the enduring allure of Country music’s golden age, weaving a melodic narrative that resonates with themes of love and the indomitable Texan essence.

Nick Delffs is not a protest singer. He’s 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—as Delffs navigated first-time fatherhood, losing friends, and approaching his 40s—these experiences are woven through the 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. Transitional Phase is some of his finest and most vulnerable work. As the title suggests, it’s an album about opening oneself up to change, refusing the calcification that comes with age, and opting for wholesale transformation instead.

“Transformation,” the album’s opening track, is a looping, percussive opener with dub-inflected elements—a signal that Transitional Phase’s themes of change and transfiguration are not limited to its lyrics. Much of the album was recorded in early 2020 at co-producer/collaborator Eli Moore’s spacious and strange studio on Whidbey Island, just outside Seattle. When those sessions were interrupted by the pandemic, Delffs continued work back in Boise. He wrote constantly during the early days of lockdown and entered a secluded vocal booth in his friend Z. V. House’s Boise studio, sending tracks to Moore, who often took songs in unexpected directions. That process left Delffs with about three albums’ worth of material to sort through.

When writing, Delffs spends as much time as possible not listening to music. “That’s really helpful for me,” he says, “because then it becomes this thing where I need music, I need songs—so I have to make them.” He also spent time thinking about cows—the John Gnorski–illustrated cow on the album cover was on his mind—and about a recent trip to India, where he picked up cow fun-facts. “They just eat grass and somehow milk is created,” he marvels. “Their poo and pee is antiseptic and medicinal!”

Musical memories do sneak in: Delffs found himself thinking about Tom Petty and Talking Heads. You can hear echoes of David Byrne on the angular “Power and Position,” which also features accompanying vocals from LAKE’s Ashley Eriksson. Delffs enlisted longtime friends and collaborators to flesh out the album: 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 Broderick (Sharon Van Etten, M. Ward); and bass by Mayhaw Hoons, his old bandmate in The Shaky Hands.

The lush “Brave New World” juxtaposes a smooth groove with heavy themes of social upheaval and features Broderick’s string arrangement. It’s one of three songs on Transitional Phase—along with back-to-back closers “A Perfect Storm” and “Egomaniacs”—that slowly transform into a prayer. The chanted and sung lines may nod to artists Delffs admires (including Alice Coltrane, George Harrison, Yamuna Devi), and his fascination with Hinduism and his India trip influenced the album: “Meditating and chanting are such constant parts of my life these days,” Delffs says.

The title track “Transitional Phase” is a marriage of two aesthetics: Delffs’ vulnerable self-examination and Moore and Eriksson’s literate DIY yacht-funk from LAKE. The result is sonically freeing in moments reminiscent of Peter Gabriel or Kate Bush. The songs on Transitional Phase blur the line between waking life and dreams. Delffs sings, speaks, and occasionally chants about changing tides—yearning, searching, remembering, and sometimes wishing to forget. On “Absence of Love Song” he admits he’ll wait “on and on and on and on for another chance.” Maybe that’s foolish. Or, as Delffs sings, “Maybe it’s today.”