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Pulse

Blake Miller

Blake Miller is not much of a talker. When it comes to creating, promoting or describing his music, the 20-year-old singer/songwriter would prefer to retreat into his private world.

Luckily for him, he's got the support of one of Ohio's prominent indie record labels, and writers can gush for him about his resplendent music, which so far has benefited from blocking out the universe and zeroing in on his brimming cauldron of ideas.

"When Blake is by himself, he just does it so quickly and so effortlessly," his girlfriend Christine Kirkpatrick said as they shared one side of a booth at Victorian's Midnight Caf?.

Miller agreed, explaining, "It's easier to do it on my own. You don't have to communicate."

Two years ago, after parting ways with The Salt and the Sea, the instrumental post-rock group he joined in high school, Miller hunkered down at his computer and let that effortless muse go to work.

The result was a treasure trove of ghostly, tussled-hair bedroom recordings that Miller distributed haphazardly by CD-R. One disc made it to Brandon Stevens of Cleveland-based Exit Stencil Recordings.

"It sounded so unique," Stevens said. "The way he can harmonize with himself, it can be everything from intimate to haunting and overpowering."

Yes, for someone so soft-spoken, Miller's voice is shockingly powerful. His confident falsetto is all over Together With Cats, the compilation of home recordings that became his Exit Stencil debut last fall. Sometimes he's cooing eerie atmospherics; sometimes he's blaring with a preacher's rapturous vigor; sometimes he's closing in from all sides.

Miller makes versatile use of his voice and an acoustic guitar, crafting lullabies, folk anthems and unknowable anomalies with equal facility. It adds up to an album of surprising variety but unmistakable identity.

The record caught the attention of indie-rock bellwether Pitchfork Media and earned Miller an invitation to South by Southwest. And Miller already began his follow-up, this time commuting in his unreliable car to record with Exit Stencil's Ryan Weitzel in Cleveland.

Miller is not concerned about struggling to communicate with a producer or losing his lo-fi charm.

"It's basically the same. I still have complete freedom to do whatever I want," he said.

He is slightly bothered by those car problems, though, and how they might hinder touring possibilities. But as Stevens suggested, the logistics will work themselves out. To paraphrase Miller's own lyric, he need not worry—the promoters, scribes and his singularly beautiful music are on his side.

—Chris DeVille

January 25, 2007