Faith Coloccia

Faith Coloccia
Background information
Also known as	Mára
Genres	Drone, dark ambient, post-rock
Occupation(s)	Artist, graphic designer, musician, singer, songwriter, record label owner
Instruments	Piano, organ, keyboard, guitar
Years active	2003–present
Labels	Hydra Head, SIGE, Blackest Ever Black
Associated acts	Mamiffer, House of Low Culture, Everlovely Lightningheart, Pyramids, Split Cranium

Faith Coloccia is an American artist and musician. She is most known as being the founding member and primary songwriter for the post-rock band Mamiffer. Coloccia has also been a member of Everlovely Lightningheart, Pyramids, House of Low Culture and Split Cranium. In 2009, she co-founded the independent record label SIGE Records with her husband Aaron Turner (Isis, Sumac).^[1]

Music career[]

Faith Coloccia describes one of her first bands Everlovely Lightningheart as being a large experiment that extended beyond the writing sessions. In an interview, she said the project included everything "from my friendship with [band mate] Chris Badger, to the ways we lived our lives, how we talked, what we made, how we viewed the world, everything. It encompassed our whole lives and was very much based on chaos" and elaborated that the band "the project focused on improvisational abilities, chance, collaborations, freaking ourselves out, unlearning old patterns of thinking, and was barely contained."^[2]

After Everlovely Lightningheart disbanded, Coloccia took some of her unused ideas from the project and formed Mamiffer.^[1] The band started out as a collaborative project with a new cast of revolving guest musicians on each new album, but grew into a duo project between her and Turner with Coloccia remaining the primary songwriter and creative visionary. Coloccia has also been a part of several other bands. She briefly joined Turner's drone project House of Low Culture.^[1] She joined Rich Balling's (Rx Bandits, The Sound of Animals Fighting) collaborative project Pyramids.^[3] After guesting on Turner's crust punk band's self-titled debut album, Coloccia returned as an official member performing keyboard for their second album I'm The Devil And I'm OK in 2018.^[4]

In 2010, Coloccia formed the record label SIGE Records with Turner as a way to release albums they were directly or loosely related to.^[1][5] SIGE also grew out of an interest to maintain control over their releases, have their products hand-made when possible and cut out as many middlemen as possible in an album's creation process.^[5]

She released her first solo album (under the moniker Mára) titled Surfacing in December 2015.^[6]

Artwork[]

Coloccia is a photographer, artist and graphic designer. As a child, she was surrounded and influenced by several creative types who drew her toward creating art. Her mother and her mother's friends were involved in theatre, her father was a carpenter, and her childhood babysitter's house that "was made into different worlds and lands, sculpted terrains, and imaginary places" also inspired her.^[5] Coloccia's interest in photography developed in part by her father and grandfather's interests in taking photos and flipping through issues of Rolling Stone and Martha Stewart Living magazines as a child. She majored in Fine Arts Photography at Otis College of Art & Design, where she met Chris Badger of Everlovely Lightningheart.^[5]

She has created artwork and designed the layout for dozens of albums for her own projects and others including: Knut's Wonder (2010), Helms Alee's Weatherhead (2011), and Old Man Gloom's No (2012) and The Ape of God / The Ape of God (2014).^[7]

Discography[]

Everlovely Lightningheart[]

• Cusp (2006, Hydra Head)
• Sien Weal Tallion Rue (2009, Hydra Head)

Pyramids[]

• Pyramids with Nadja (collaboration with Nadja) (2009, Hydra Head)
• A Throne Without a King (split with Horseback) (2011, Hydra Head)

Mamiffer[]

• Hirror Enniffer (2008, Hydra Head)
• Mare Decendrii (2011, Conspiracy)
• Bless Them That Curse You (collaboration with Locrian) (2012, Profound Lore)
• Enharmonic Intervals (for Paschen Organ) (collaboration with Circle) (2013, Ektro)
• Statu Nascendi (2014, SIGE)
• Crater (collaboration with Daniel Menche) (2015, SIGE)
• The World Unseen (2016, SIGE)
• The Brilliant Tabernacle (2019, SIGE)

House of Low Culture[]

• Poisoned Soil (2011, Taiga)

Barnett + Coloccia[]

• Retrieval (2013, Blackest Ever Black)
• Weld (2015, Blackest Ever Black)
• VLF (2019, SIGE)

Baker / Coloccia / Mueller[]

• See Through (2019, Gizeh)

Mára (solo)[]

• Surfacing (2015, SIGE)^[6]

Split Cranium[]

• I'm The Devil And I'm OK (2018, Ipecac)

Faith Coloccia[]

• Stardust w/ Philip Jeck (2021, Touch)

As guest[]

Year	Artist	Album	Music contributions
2011	Boris	Heavy Rocks	piano on "Aileron"
2011	Master Musicians of Bukkake	Totem Three	vocals on "Reign of Quantity and the Signs of the Times / Patriarch of the Iron Age"
2011	Wolves in the Throne Room	Celestial Lineage	vocals on "Subterranean Initiation"
2012	Jodis	Black Curtain	vocals on "Red Bough"
2012	William Fowler Collins	Tenebroso	piano on "Scythe"
2012	Split Cranium	Split Cranium	guitar and glass on "Black Binding Plague"
2014	Old Man Gloom	The Ape of God I	vocals on "Eden's Gates"
2015	Sumac	The Deal	piano on "Thorn in the Lion's Paw"
2016	Sumac	What One Becomes	organ on "Clutch of Oblivion" and "Blackout"
2017	Janne Westerlund	There's a Passage	vocals on "So Messed Up"
2018	Sumac	Love in Shadow	organ on "The Task"
2019	Janne Westerlund	Bell	vocals on "So Vast the Fields of Sorrow"
2019	Dekathlon	The Thin Road 7″	vocals
2020	Old Man Gloom		vocals and organ on "Death Rhymes"
2020	Sumac	May You Be Held	organ on "Laughter & Silence"

References[]

External links[]

• Fire in Fog – Faith Coloccia's personal blog
• Faith Coloccia discography on Discogs