---
title: Leah Coloff
description: Leah Coloff, the Brooklyn cellist and songwriter who sang and played in Number19, fronts Lucibel Crater, and worked on Book of Sarth with Sarth Calhoun.
url: https://www.sarth.net/conspirators/leah-coloff/
credit: Leah Coloff and Sarth Calhoun have played together since Number19 in 1999: Number19 (*Suspension*, 2001), Lucibel Crater (*Miracles*, 2007, and *The Family Album*, 2008), and *The Book of Sarth*, 2012.
author: Sarth Calhoun
---
[Conspirators](/conspirators/) / Leah Coloff

Conspirator

# Leah Coloff

[Leah Coloff](https://www.leahcoloff.com/) is a cellist, singer and songwriter in Brooklyn. She played cello and sang in [Number19](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number19) from 1999, and she fronts [Lucibel Crater](/conspiracies/lucibel-crater/), the trio I started with her and drummer [Paul Chuffo](/conspirators/paul-chuffo/) in 2005. She also tours and records on her own, cello and voice with no other musicians, and she has played cello on other people’s records for years.

She and I have made three things together: Number19, Lucibel Crater, and [Book of Sarth](/conspiracies/book-of-sarth/).

![Leah Coloff at the cello, singing, in a black-and-white photograph from 2001.](/images/number19-leah-coloff-2001.jpg)

Leah Coloff in 2001, from the Number19 site, numbernineteen.net.

> Along his musical journeys, he met cellist and songwriter Leah Coloff, who convinced him to combine computers with music. The band they established, Number19, funded its first record with downloads from mp3.com in 2001.
> 
> The biography on Sarth Calhoun’s old WordPress site

## Number19

Coloff, [Tony Diodore](/conspirators/tony-diodore/), [Mark Righter](/conspirators/mark-righter/) and I formed [Number19](/conspiracies/number19/) in 1999. I met her trying out for her band, when she was promoting *Dark Sweet Heart*, and she played in Gebbeth, my electronica-improv group, before Number19. The band put looped cello and voice over bass and drums, and paid for its first record, [*Suspension*](/transmissions/suspension/), out of mp3.com downloads.

## Lucibel Crater

I started Lucibel Crater in 2005 with Coloff on cello and voice and Paul Chuffo on drums. The trio released an EP, *Miracles*, in 2007 and a full-length, *The Family Album*, in 2008. [Lou Reed](/conspirators/lou-reed/) plays guitar on “Threadbare Funeral.” The live dates that survive in the record are on [Sightings](/sightings/).

## Book of Sarth

Coloff is one of the four people I named when [Book of Sarth](/conspiracies/book-of-sarth/) was finished. Leah Coloff is a force of nature. She later released a gralbum of her own through the Gralbum Collective, the platform Book of Sarth was built to become.

The credit: Leah Coloff and Sarth Calhoun have played together since Number19 in 1999: Number19 (*Suspension*, 2001), Lucibel Crater (*Miracles*, 2007, and *The Family Album*, 2008), and *The Book of Sarth*, 2012.

## How I introduced her

> Leah Coloff is a Brooklyn-based cellist/singer/songwriter whose first album “Dark Sweet Heart” was greeted with critical praise and college radio play in the US. She tours and records as a solo act, cello and voice unaccompanied by other musicians or fancy machinery. She recently co-starred as Emily Dickinson in Ridge Theater’s “Lighting at Our Feet,” playing and singing music composed by [Michael Gordon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Gordon_(composer)). She’s contributed her cello to a long list of recording artists including [Ziggy Marley](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ziggy_Marley), [Rufus Wainwright](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rufus_Wainwright), [Dr. John](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._John), [Nancy Sinatra](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Sinatra), [Joel Thome](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joel_Thome), and [David Bowie](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Bowie). When performing with Lucibel Crater, Leah takes on many roles, one minute she’s a beat poet and her cello becomes an upright bass, the next she’s a cello playing hendrix, soul singing and feedback soloing.

I wrote that introduction, and the biography quoted above, for my old WordPress site, recovered from the Wayback Machine. How we met is from the band’s own site, numbernineteen.net, as captured in 2001, and so is the photograph.