Pedal steel guitarist Heather Leigh is a composer, singer, improviser, and visual artist. Since the 1990s, she has pushed the sonic and tonal boundaries of the pedal steel beyond those conventionally definable. She also plays electric guitar, keyboards, cuatro, psaltery, drums, bass, and harmonica. She describes her music as "high metal masses for amplified strings and vocals that blow all notions of form and fidelity to pieces." During the 2000s, she collaborated with Christina Carter as part of Charalambides and Scorces. In 2004, she founded Volcanic Tongue, a Glasgow-based music distributor which expanded into a shop and a record label. In addition to collaborating with experimental musicians including Thurston Moore, Jandek, and Chris Corsano, she has released solo albums on labels like Not Not Fun (Devil if You Can Hear Me, 2007) and Ideologic Organ (I Abused Animal, 2015). Beginning in 2016, she released a series of collaborations with free jazz legend Peter Brötzmann. Leigh was born in West Virginia, but grew up in and near Houston, Texas, where she learned the pedal steel. She has been recording as a solo artist in collaboration and with various ensembles since the mid-'90s. Her catalog includes over three-dozen recordings from almost as many labels, including her own Wish Image and Volcanic Tongue. She's toured extensively as a solo artist but also a member of Ash Castles on the Ghost Coast, Charalambides, Scorces (which she co-founded with Christina Carter), the Dream/Aktion Unit (with Thurston Moore, Paul Flaherty, Chris Corsano, and Matt Heyner), Taurpis Tula, and Jailbreak (a duo with Corsano). She has also worked with Jandek, Richard Youngs, Smegma, and Jutta Koether, to name a few. As a visual artist, Leigh was the graphic designer for the Pauline Oliveros Foundation Houston. Her work has been exhibited in the United States and the United Kingdom and has adorned album covers. Based in Scotland since the beginning of the century, she and her partner, author, critic, and musician David Keenan, ran the mail order music shop and record label Volcanic Tongue from 2004-2015. Her solo albums, including There's a Brunette Up in Tulsa That Cries for Me (Volcanic Tongue) and Devil if You Can Hear Me (Not Not Fun), drew excellent critical notice as well as an increase in touring opportunities. In 2015, I Abused Animal was issued jointly by Stephen O' Malley's Ideologic Organ label and Peter Rehberg's Editions Mego. It was a showcase for her unique songwriting and singing, as well as her instrumental skills. The album was celebrated globally and made the year-end lists of many critics. In early 2016, she undertook a duo tour with saxophonist Peter Brötzmann. Their first album, Ears Are Filled with Wonder, recorded during a stint in Kraków, Poland, was issued by Trost in May. This was followed by 2017's Sex Tape (recorded at the Music Unlimited Festival in Wels, Austria) and 2018's tour-only release Crowmoon. ~ Thom Jurek, Rovi