Wayward in Limbo #37: Housekeys

Tiffiny Costello (aka Housekeys) creates ambient dreamscapes designed to leave space for feeling, thinking, drifting, and disappearing. Tiffiny layers sounds on top of sounds with keyboards, guitars, and pedals, as well as recorded sounds from the field: be it city sounds, audio captured during hiking and exploring in nature – anything interesting is of interest to Tiffiny. Composing the most during dark periods of grief, depression, and hopelessness, Tiffiny uses music as a coping skill, an outlet. You can find her music on BandCamp and SoundCloud.

Jellyfish is an improvised ambient drone composition created by layering sounds on top of each other by way of long-tail delay and reverb effects played live. Nothing heard was changed after the recording, it was mixed down as-is. I love using different sounds from my keyboard, like Mellotron, strings, piano, and Wurlitzer, and then running them through a chain of pedal effects to create an emotionally sonic atmosphere, where each chord is decided on in the moment, and the preceding sound influences what comes next. Emotional response is always my goal. I want to feel something while composing, and I want others to feel something while listening or experiencing my music.

With the Chapel closed indefinitely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Wayward Music Series moves from the concert hall to the living room. In place of our usual ten monthly concerts, Nonsequitur is commissioning ten Seattle artists each month to create a series of streaming audio sessions of previously unreleased material.