“A voice that could do anything,” declares Americana UK.

Hayley Thompson-King has been recognized internationally for her songwriting, stage performance, and “explosive display of vocal prowess” (PopMatters) since she emerged onto the rock scene fronting Banditas in 2012. Her debut solo album, Psychotic Melancholia, was praised by Paste Magazine as “a positively jaw-dropping exposition that celebrates the entire canon of rock ‘n’ roll’s energy, and should be considered an upping of the ante on the gritty sonic real estate of garage, punk, country, and Americana, into some amalgam altogether more apt of Thompson-King’s wondrous artistic aptitudes.”

In its review of her latest album, Sororicide, Newsweek observes, “in the vein of alt-classical song cycles and rock concept albums, her new work layers wide-reaching sonics with palpable psychodrama. At its core is the battle between an artist and the voice inside her head.” Produced by 90’s rock architect, Sean Slade (Radiohead, Hole, Lou Reed), Sororicide takes the listener on “a wild stylistic ride,” according to Billboard, as Thompson-King “accommodates country, rock and opera.”

Her diverse sonic influences ranging from garage rock to Americana to art music have earned Thompson-King radio play on Sirius XM’s Outlaw Country and Underground Garage stations, as well as opportunities to tour internationally appearing at Stockholm Americana Festival in Stockholm, Sweden, NPR’s Modern Love Live, The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, MA, Americana Fest in Nashville, TN, SXSW, and Frank Turner’s Lost Evenings Fest at The House of Blues Boston. She has appeared on bills with Jason Isbell, Andrew WK, Hurray for The Riff Raff, Frank Turner, Brothers Osbourne, and Jimmy Dale Gilmore and Dave Alvin among others. Her music has been heard in film and television, including Marielle Heller’s Diary of a Teenage Girl.

In addition to her solo work, Thompson-King recorded and toured as the lead singer of the band Major Stars from 2012 – 2016 – appearing on the albums Motion Set (Drag City) and Decibels of Gratitude (Important Records).

Thompson-King has a Master’s degree in Opera Performance from New England Conservatory, and a Bachelor’s degree in Opera Performance from New York University. Her teaching methods are further supported by her study of Somatic Voicework (The LoVetri Method) as well as Dalcroze Eurythmics.

She is an Associate Professor of Voice at Berklee College of Music in Boston, MA, and an Artist – Teacher of Jazz and Contemporary Music Studies in Voice at Longy School of Music of Bard College in Cambridge, MA.

Sororicide is a fantasy in which process prevails killing the desirable art object. It is presented as a song cycle, a digital and physical album, and a multi-media performance piece that incorporates projections by the artist Ann Kraus (Good Ribs). The story is of an artist whose inner voice is so deafening, she believes it to be that of a parasitic twin she absorbed while in utero. The “twins”, inspired by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht’s Die sieben Todsünden (1933), are meant to represent the internal struggle between the values of the unrepeatable experience of art (the  process) and the art object.  Hayley uses this story as a vehicle to explore a wide range of vocalities which bring life to the “twins”. These stylistic choices are also undeniably part of her natural impulses as she staggers from primitive rock shrieks to vibrato drenched operatic runs, sounding at times like two different people.

Album opener “A Little Less Lonesome” introduces the record’s heroine as someone who isn’t afraid of anything because she’s “already in hell.” Through Hayley’s wails and ‘60s rock ‘n’ roll ethos, she explores the darkness that comes with the ultimate freedom. The push-pull of the “sister” relationship is further magnified in “Mid-nite Convenient,” where the artist is drawn to violent men and her “sister” steps in to save her, and in “Malcolm’s Moon” as she begins to turn on the voice. By fierce kiss-off “Whiskey Dick” it’s clear: one of them must die. In desperation, she ultimately silences the voice, killing her “sister”.

“Must the winter come so soon?” from Samuel Barber’s Vanessa and “Toi, le coeur de la rose” from Maurice Ravel’s L’enfant et les Sortileges are re-arranged as psychedelic-alt-Americana-garage rock. In the latter, the artist mourns for the “twin” singing, “Tu ne m’as laissé, comme un rayon de lune, Qu’un cheveu d’or sur mon épaule, Un cheveu d’or…et les debris d’un reve…” (You left me here like a ray of moonlight, with only one golden hair on my shoulder, One golden hair…and the fragments of a dream…”)

The album ends with “Elijah,” a wistful goodbye penned by Hayley following the death of her dog Gus. “When Gus died, I felt I was sitting in and keeping this space open. I am so moved by the tradition at Passover of leaving a place for the prophet Elijah.” she says. “Because when something dies, you want to keep everything as it was…you don’t want that space to close.”

In addition to her solo work, Hayley has collaborated on projects with the Providence, Rhode Island artists collective Planchette, and experimental psych-rock band Major Stars.