Thrum by Sheila Nicholls & Dave Stringer

Thrum:
1. A continuous rhythmic humming sound
2. To drum with one's fingers.
3. In weaving, the fringe of thread left in the loom when the finished cloth is cut away.

Thrum is an idiosyncratic album, deeply personal, and created without commercial calculation. It’s an exploration of the essential vibratory nature of the world; a collection of duets that oscillate between the poles of masculine and feminine, singing both in counterpoint and in harmony. It's a reflection of what we see, a projection of how we see it, and a meditation on who is seeing; an inquiry into the nature of love and identity in a calculus somewhere between the transient and the eternal.

The music defies genre description, but it showcases the truly stellar vocal chemistry of Dave Stringer and Sheila Nicholls. There are no samples, and most of the music was recorded old-school style with musicians playing together in the same room. Sheila and Dave first sang together on mantra recordings back in the early 2000’s, lost track of one another for years, and eventually reunited to produce Sheila’s album All of Nature in 2014.

Thrum sweeps cinematically from intimate closeups to astonishing vistas, brought into exquisite focus by the mixing skill of Phoenix Quinn and the mastering touch of Stefan Heger. It embraces classical, jazz, Americana, madrigal and 70’s Laurel Canyon singer-songwriter idioms, without ever being bound by any of them. The lyrics are at different turns romantic, philosophical and transcendental.

Stringer and Nicholls are accompanied by an exquisite jazz trio on every track, led by pianist Mitchel Forman and featuring bassist Edwin Livingston and drummer Chad Wackerman. Half of the tracks are accented by the pedal steel of Dean Parks and the trumpet and flugelhorn of Aaron Janik. A string section (Deepak Ramapriyan, Manoela Wunder, Rita Andrade, Ro Rowan and Wynton Grant) defines the other half, with Steve Gorn on bansuri flute and Bob Sheppard on clarinet. World percussionist and vibes player T.J. Troy tastefully augments and ornaments all of the arrangements.

We suggest listening to Thrum like you would have listened to a traditional LP. The sound of one side is brighter and points toward the sky, colored by pedal steel and trumpet. The other side is more orchestral, and embraces the depths, shaded by a string quartet. Start with whichever mood appeals and lose yourself in it. Then flip it over and absorb yourself in the sigh and the hum of another world.

Sheila Nicholls is an English singer songwriter based in Los Angeles. Sheila has released five albums and her songs have been featured in the films High Fidelity and Jackie & Ryan. Sheila has toured extensively, charted in the US top 10 in college radio and the Billboard top 40, and appeared on the Tonight show.