Nick Delffs

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 authentic—maybe ancient—voice.

The songs on Transitional Phase represent some of his finest and most vulnerable work. Largely recorded in 2020 with co-producer/collaborator Eli Moore, and with key vocal contributions from Ashley Eriksson (Moore and Eriksson are co-founders of the legendary Olympia band LAKE) in Moore’s spacious and strange stripmall studio on Whidbey Island, just outside of Seattle. The sessions were interrupted by the onset of the pandemic where Delffs returned to his adopted hometown of Boise continuing to write and record, sending audio to Moore, who often took songs in unexpected new directions. “Eli added a lot,” Delffs says. “He really put himself in it. I’m not sure I’d felt that level of deep collaboration and trust since the Shaky Hands days.”

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. Nick Delffs’ Transitional Phase is due out July 26th on Mama Bird Recording Co.