The Bedroom-Soul Recluse Behind PWRHAUS Finally Pokes His Head out of the Basement. Sort Of.

Good news—Portland's hermetic king of homegrown neo-soul, Tonality Star, is ready to embrace the spotlight.

Well, sort of.

He still won't do interviews. But you can relay any questions you might have through his bass player, Max Stein. Via email only, though. Because Stein is in Europe.

But otherwise, welcome to the public eye, Mr. Star!

Star's rise to prominence began with his completely anonymous, self-released 2011 debut, To My Long Lost Love. What was initially intended as a modest, one-way transmission soon exploded into mild popularity when Robin Pecknold of Fleet Foxes acquired a copy and embraced the LP as his favorite of the year. The nod from such a prominent Northwest musician launched Star into overnight notoriety, eventually culminating in the addition of several more musicians to PWRHAUS' lineup.

"For a while, it was the more the merrier," Stein writes from Copenhagen. "Tony is a total hermit, but even a hermit might send out a transmission from time to time. He wanted to explore what the larger band could do."

Star was already notable for holding intimate, open-door performances in his Northeast Portland home, where his unabashed longing transfixed anyone hip enough to know about it. But the bigger band elevated the simplistic intimacy of his solo shows into a bombastic force of lush, futuristic soul. Imagine Jeff Lynne doing his best Jeff Mangum impersonation after a devastating breakup, or maybe Al Green forced to work in Beach House's rehearsal space.

As PWRHAUS expanded its roster, Star grew weary of the guitar-based model so prominently featured on Long Lost Love. The band's new self-titled album instead embraces a haze of warm synth tones and ever-echoing delay on Star's falsetto vocals. The subdued tempo and murky ambience of PWRHAUS elucidate Star's ability to construct miraculously catchy songs out of chord progressions and phrases already overused by a long lineage of lovelorn songwriters. Even the titles on the album—"Got You on My Mind," "You're the Only One," "I'll Never Let You Go"—seem lifted from the '70s pop-song canon. A single listen reveals how inventive and adept Star is at drawing absolute magic from the oldest romantic tropes.

Though initially released last year, the album is currently being reintroduced with a film accompaniment shot by local filmmaker Padraic O'Meara that will feature heavily in the band's live performances from now on.

For a reclusive figure so intent on keeping out people he hasn't specifically invited in, Star seems poised to amass a much larger following than what he may have initially anticipated for the second time in his career.

"People have been telling Tony he has 'the thing' his whole life," Stein writes. "It's the first time he has a team of people around him who really believe in him and want to take him to the next level."

SEE IT: PWRHAUS plays Holocene, 1001 SE Morrison St., with Secrets and Shaus, on Wednesday, Feb. 8. 8:30 pm. $7 advance, $8 day of show. 21+.