Mariee Sioux
By Kyle Lemmon

Photo by Simon Weller

Sometimes distressing events can produce some of the most beautiful poetry. Mariee Sioux, a folk singer from the historic California mining camp turned bucolic town, Nevada City, realized this after her trip to Patagonia when she was 17. In a place where the explorer Magellan once called the natives "patagons" because of their great size, Sioux found herself feeling quite small and isolated. When she wasn't helping at a school for the indigenous tribe of the area, learning guitar provided her with solace during her three-month stay. Some of the resulting songs were later molded into what would become her haunting debut, Faces in the Rocks, inspiring the transition in Sioux from poet to musician.

Faces in the Rocks is a folk-inspired, nocturnal ode to a forgotten time in America's history when communities were closely tied to nature. Its circular songs are steeped in ritual and feature Sioux's father Gary Sobonya on mandolin and Grammy-nominated new age artist Gentle Thunder playing a Native American flute carved from a thousand-year-old redwood. The recording was very fluid according to Sioux, "We had never played together before and we didn't really practice. We just recorded live in separate rooms."

That sort of organic way of recording is echoed in Sioux's life outside of music. At her new home in Santa Cruz, she has a small garden where she grows kale, lettuce, broccoli, bok choy, Brussels sprouts and cilantro. Sioux also wants to maintain and grow strong roots with her immediate family in Nevada City, as well as her ancestral one. She remembers growing up there with fondness; the feeling of being at one with nature that she conveys on her album is something the artist experienced right outside her doorstep. "The area around my parent's house is pretty amazing," Sioux says remembering, "I used to sit in the huge bow of this one madrone tree because there was this little cradle shape in it. It was really comfortable."

But comfortable isn't exactly how Sioux felt during her first live shows. The quiet and introspective singer is still quite baffled by everything going on around her. Her first big out-of-town gig was with Brightblack Morning Light in 2006 after they invited her to sing at band member Nabob Shineywater's Quiet, Quiet, Forest Spectrum festival in Big Sur. Her first few concerts on the resulting tour (Crystal Totem Turr) were pretty intense, she admits. "It wasn't something I was used to doing. Since those first songs, I've definitely gotten more comfortable. But at first I was so scared I could hardly think."

Sioux still struggles with stage fright but she's getting better through sheer practice.
Sioux is also starting to adapt to the bewildering world of performing with some aid from her friends. Though she's now living along California's Central Coast, Sioux is part of a family of musicians under the welcoming banner of Nevada City's Grass Roots Record Co. (GRRC), founded by Marc Snegg in 2006. (Snegg doesn't like to call it a record label because, he says, "a label is something you place on top of an object to define or categorize it.") GRRC and Nevada City are known for their own musical gold rush. Local artists range from convulsive noisemakers (Hella), to innovative folk artists (Sioux and Alela Diane), to Marc Snegg's very own rock outfit (Snegg Band), to nationally-known breakouts (Joanna Newsom).

Sioux speaks fondly of both her old hometown and her new musical residence with GRRC. Both are places where everyone knows each other and Sioux counts that as a blessing because of the friendships she's made. "I share a lot of the same values with the other artists at Grass Roots," Sioux says, "like Aaron Ross and Lee Bob Watson. We all hang out together when we're not helping each other with music."

Looking towards the future, Sioux wants to first test the waters some more before she commits to anything. She's even looking forward to playing in front of people. "Man, at this point I just want to be out there playing my songs at some shows and see if this is a real thing I can do. I hope they can find a place in people's lives."

www.myspace.com/marieesioux