Heather Leigh Murray
Avant-garde Pedal Steel Guitarist and Vocalist
The daughter of a coal miner, Heather Leigh was born in West Virginia and raised in Texas and has been recording and releasing music since the 1990s. These days she's firmly rooted in Glasgow, Scotland, where she’s co-run Volcanic Tongue Record Shop & Mailorder since 2004. Her music has been described as "high metal masses for amplified strings and vocals that blow all notions of form and fidelity to pieces." She’s released numerous recordings on labels such as Not Not Fun, Family Vineyard, Fag Tapes, Ultra Eczema, Chocolate Monk, Kendra Steiner Editions, Ikuisuus, Eclipse Records, Fonal and her own imprints, Wish Image and Volcanic Tongue. Her main instruments are pedal steel guitar and voice, as well as electric guitar, keyboards, bells, cuatro, psaltery, drums, bass and harmonica. She’s toured extensively as a solo artist throughout the US, Europe and New Zealand and has also played/performed/released music with Ash Castles On The Ghost Coast, Charalambides, Scorces (a duo with Christina Carter), the Dream/Aktion Unit (a group with Thurston Moore, Paul Flaherty, Chris Corsano and Matt Heyner), Taurpis Tula, Jailbreak (a duo with Chris Corsano) and Jandek who she’s played live and recorded with in the States and the UK as well as played bass with on the only tours he’s ever done in Northern Ireland and Australia. She’s also collaborated with Richard Youngs, Blood Stereo, MV & EE, Marcia Bassett, Robbie Yeats of The Dead C, John Olson of Wolf Eyes, Smegma, Jutta Koether, Kommissar Hjuler & Mama Baer and many others. Heather Leigh is also a visual artist. For many years she was the graphic designer for Pauline Oliveros Foundation Houston and her visual art has been included in many UK & US exhibitions and used on many record covers.