Viva Voce

by MacKenzie Wilson
Kevin Robinson (drums) and Anita Robinson (vocals/guitars) formed the indie rock outfit Viva Voce in their native Muscle Shoals, AL, in 1998. Viva Voce (pronounced VEE-vah-VOH-chay) is the Italian definition for "by word of mouth." Hooray for Now marked the husband-and-wife duo's first album before the year's end. Headlining club dates and performing support gigs for Sunny Day Real Estate followed into 1999. As they developed their guitar-driven indie pop, Viva Voce left their Southern abode for Portland, OR, in 2002, and there Viva Voce founded the Amore!Phonics label as a means of distributing the band's earlier material. A sophomore effort, Lovers Lead the Way, appeared the next summer. Dates with Calexico, Ladybug Transistor, and Gorky's Zygotic Mynci also coincided with its release. Around this time, west coast radio stations such as Seattle's KEXP and KCRW in Los Angeles caught on to Viva Voce's inventive pop sound, and again championed Viva Voce's atmospheric sound in progress. Heat Can Melt Your Brain, the band's first release for Minty Fresh, arrived in summer 2004. North American and European tour dates in support of that record followed into the end of 2005. Fall shows with Silversun Pickups matched the September 2006 release of Viva Voce's fourth album, Get Yr Blood Sucked Out. It marked their first release for Seattle's Barsuk Records.