Into the Mystery
Album artwork by Melinda Braathen
Into the Mystery, Andrea Tomasi’s sophomore album, is a balm for the soul in a time of environmental and political tumult. The music arose—as it did for many artists—in the midst of the pandemic, when societal dread and newfound isolation left her asking the question: “What can I offer as a source of healing for the world?”
In a cramped, rickety bedroom in Portland, Oregon, Tomasi spent nearly a year writing and recording Into the Mystery, an expansive soundscape woven with striking vocal harmonies and lyrical inspiration from some of history’s greatest poets, Wendell Berry to Rilke. She skillfully blends aspects of new age and ambient music with traditional folk and Celtic leanings to create a meditative, eight-track journey with blissful highs and haunting lows.
Early in the process, Tomasi reached out to Jeremy Thal, a multi-instrumentalist best known for his stake in Briars of North America. Briars’ latest album, Supermoon, was released in June 2021 to critical acclaim, including a slot on NPR’s All Songs Considered. Thal, a co-founder of Found Sound Nation’s globe-trotting musical group, OneBeat, reached deep into his cadre of talented international collaborators to add strings, horns, and percussion to Into the Mystery.
Tomasi’s use of poetry is rooted in her improvisational singing style. Every so often, she explains, a certain poem will simply feel like an invitation to create a melody. From there, it’s an organic, unfolding process of being present with the stanzas, the words, and herself. “Poets already have this very lyrical way of speaking to the divine, or the unseen, which is really what I feel like my music is in service to. I’m just lucky when I get permission to use the words.”
Tomasi, a lifelong vocal artist raised in the same Central Vermont-based musical wellspring that produced fellow folk musicians Anaïs Mitchell, Abigail Nessen-Bengson, and Moira Smiley (the latter two were formative mentors), has shifted and honed her craft in the decade since her first release, Hurricane Dream. Into the Mystery is a culmination of untold hours spent in vocal meditation and experimenting with embodied improvisation. Listeners might hear hints of contemporary new music artists like Beautiful Chorus, Silvia Nakkach, and Ayla Nereo.
Tomasi hopes that Into the Mystery will lift listeners out of suffering—even for a brief moment—through its blissful, organic lullabies and in the rich lodes of poetic wisdom, unearthed and shining through song. “This album is an invitation for people to be still inside of themselves—to be led on a journey, and into the mystery,” explains Tomasi, “so that they might come into deeper connection with themselves and with life.”
Into the Mystery was released on September 22nd, 2021.
Bio
Andrea Tomasi was raised in Vermont’s rural, rolling Green Mountains. From a young age, she was steeped in the region’s rich alternative folk music culture. She began her musical exploration under the tutelage of singer-songwriter Moira Smiley, known, among other things, for her performances with Tune-Yards and Ladysmith Black Mambazo. Later, Tomasi joined Vermont’s legendary alternative theatre group, Nightfires, which ran for over two decades and fostered folk greats like Anaïs Mitchell—a major inspiration for a young Tomasi. There, she studied under Abigail Nessen-Bengson, a current member of The New York Times-lauded folk-rock duo, The Bengsons.
In her twenties, Tomasi moved to Hudson, NY, where she began her singer-songwriter career in earnest. In 2012, she joined Team Love Records, based in New Paltz, NY and co-founded by Bright Eyes lead singer, Conor Oberst. A year later, she released her raw, haunting debut album, Hurricane Dream, to positive acclaim from publications like American Songwriter and For Folk’s Sake. While in Hudson, she collaborated with that city’s bourgeoning musical talents, touring with ambient indie group Briars of North America and the widely-reviewed dark folk-rock musician Johanna Warren following Hurricane Dream’s debut.
After a cross-country tour with Warren, Tomasi settled in Portland, Oregon. This marked a major shift in her previously folk-centric career. Realizing she no longer associated with the type of music she had been performing, nor the stage persona she had developed, Tomasi put down her guitar, bought a shruti box, and started studying with Grammy-nominated composer Silvia Nakkach, founder of the Vox Mundi school of the voice. “I wanted to sing with a resonance other than pain and loss—I was looking for a more spiritual path, one where I could express love and devotion through voice.”
Over seven years in Portland, Tomasi taught vocal meditation and incorporated sound journeys into meditation and restorative yoga classes across the city. By 2020, through her own practice of vocal meditation and her role as an instructor, she had accumulated hundreds of hours of improvisational recordings, which served as a spring-board for her sophomore album, Into the Mystery. Due out in September 2021, Into the Mystery is a deep reflection of Tomasi’s internal work, inspired by some of history’s greatest poets and brought about by the chasm of isolation and trauma of the recent pandemic.
