Hello, my name is: Via

As one-woman sound project Via, south Texas transplant Daralee Fallin creates dark and lush orchestrations through the simplicity of a drum machine and a sampler. Each live performance is unique, as Fallin commands her voice in a range of tones and melodies that continually evolve. Though it wasn’t always easy, Fallin has found a place in the Denver/Boulder music community for her haunted beats and chants to flourish. She helped to coordinate and performed at last summer’s Titwrench Festival (co-founded by The A.V. Club’s Bree Davies) and recently released a cassette through local label Laser Palace. Fallin talked with The A.V. Club in advance of her show with Itchy-O and Dugout Canoe tonight at Old Curtis Street about her sonic nomadism.

The A.V. Club: Is Via your first music project?

Daralee Fallin: I had a project with Isaac Linder when I was 18 called S\O\A\B\J\E\C\T (pronounced sue-o-object). It was a noise project. We were kind of experimenting with using non-musical things as instruments and improvising. After that, I wasn’t feeling inspired to play noise music anymore, so I took a break. Eventually, I got back into making music because I wanted to find this middle ground between experimenting with improvisation and non-structured music, and kind of bringing it together with pop music and traditional songwriting.

AVC: How do live shows work?

DF: As of now, Via uses very minimal instrumentation. In preparation for a show, I’ll have a beat written and some basic bass or melodic line to go with it. The live improvisation comes from what I’m doing vocally, and how the song exists. I will lead the song into itself, and I don’t really know where it’s going to go. Once I feel the song is done, I try to end it. As for lyrics, originally, when I was inspired to do Via, I was drawing largely upon the idea of being vagrant and nomadic—not having ties to a geography. That’s how I was feeling at the time personally; I was unhappy about being in Colorado, but I didn’t really want to go back to Texas. There’s a film called Vagabond by Agnès Varda, and I kind of got into an alter ego of the main character, Mona Bergeron. She’s a young French woman who quits her secretary job, packs a bag, and hitchhikes. The movie is about all of the people that she meets, and how she ends up dying. Content-wise and lyrically, that film really inspired me.

GONE/VAGABOND - VIA

AVC: What else has inspired you?

DF: I’m influenced by Kate Bush, Karin Andersson from The Knife, and other women who have really brought it. I’ve been reading about and listening to Pauline Oliveros’ compositions, though I wouldn’t say you could hear it in my music. She really spearheaded experimentalism post-World War II. In general, I’m influenced by how other women view the world and how they vocalize it.

AVC: After feeling unhappy with your Colorado surroundings, how did you step into the Denver/Boulder music community?

DF: I was dating someone who was playing music, and I wanted to play music. I decided I was going to try to make the music I wanted, and the community was very open to it. Some people say that kind of openness is a bad thing. There’s not a big scene here and no one cares, and that’s why you can do whatever you want. But on the other side, if you can truly be expressive and gain support, that is valuable.