SOU’WESTER EVENTS!

Anna Tivel is an American singer-songwriter from Portland, Oregon. She has released four studio albums on Portland-based Fluff & Gravy Records.^[3] Her 2017 album Small Believer received positive reviews^[4][5] and was named a “Top 10 underheard album of 2017” by Ann Powers of NPR.^[6] In 2019, NPR called her album The Question “one of the most ambitious folk records of 2019”;^[7] it was also listed by Paste as one of “10 essential folk albums from 2019”.^[8]

Rolling Stone listed her as a standout performer at the 2019 AmericanaFest in Nashville, writing “In a week of countless songsmiths showcasing their attempt at that exact type of singer-songwriter storytelling, Tivel’s winding, largely chorus-less tales shined and shimmered.”^[9] The magazine also named the lead single from The Question, “Fenceline”, a “song you need to know”.^[10]

Tivel was born in La Conner, Washington and grew up in a musical family, learning violin and fiddle as a child. After moving to Portland at age 18, she developed an interest in songwriting and began to write and perform her own material.^[11] Many of her songs are vignettes about the lives and struggles of ordinary people; she said in an interview “I’m drawn over and over to the small stories of people (myself included) just trying to get by, to do a little better, to feel some sort of beauty in an ugly world.”^[12] Tivel’s songs are often somber in tone as she has said that she “just [doesn’t] trust happy songs as much”.^[13]

On her last album, The Question, she collaborated with engineer Brian Joseph and producer and musician Shane Leonard.^[14]

Papi Fimbres: Presented by Sou’wester Art

AC Sapphire is currently living in the beautiful small village of Joshua Tree, CA. The death place of Graham Parsons and birth place of many artistic visions, just a couple hours away from Los Angeles. Annachristie has been writing and recording her newest EP “Sibling Rivalry” while soaking up the mountain views.

Left Coast Country is a country music collective founded by Drew Tucker in 2010. Based in Portland, Oregon, the group has seen a rotating cast of players through the years and have toured extensively throughout the US.

Dustin Hamman is a composer, musician, hack/wannabe actor/director, and donut enthusiast.

Dustin’s musical tastes span many genres but have always been rooted in folk. He had an early fascination with American Indian singing and early punk rock…later he explored the blues and the origins of country, eventually gaining interest in early jazz, swing, and big band. During a short life in Florida he was introduced to Latin rhythms and became intrigued by Flamenco and classical guitar.  More recently, he’s been dabbling in marriages of a variety of genres including, rap, rock, r&b, and noise/ambient, many of which can be heard on the recently released soundtrack for Beneath The Harvest Sky.  This was his first film scoring effort and he hopes to do many more.

http://www.mamabirdrecordingco.com/nick-delffs

Nick Delffs is a seeker. He’d never identify himself that way. He’s unassuming and self-effacing, careful to discuss song meanings and biographical details without indulgence or melodrama. Delffs cut his teeth playing basement shows in Portland a dozen years ago, just before that city’s cover was irreversibly blown. It was a time when being musically ambitious meant impressing other local musicians. You were a joke, in that world, if you proclaimed yourself an artist or promoted your band with any zeal. So Delffs would probably find “seeker” a rather grandiose title.

https://www.laserslasersbirmingham.com

Luke Borsten: Presented by Sou’wester Arts

Luke Borsten is a songwriter/saxophone man in Portland. After opening for Amanda Palmer, touring nationally, releasing an album at the Wonder Ballroom, and performing on cruise ships for two years, he’s now looking forward to his first live show of 2021. His energetic, front-porch folk performance style keeps crowds singing and clapping along, and he frequently invites special guests up to perform, making for an eclectic and memorable experience.

Luke’s band, Ghost Towns, recorded part of their album at the Sou’Wester, as part of a week-long artist residency in 2014. When not performing live Luke can be found shooting/editing live videos for bands around Portland, and is currently directing his first music video.

The Hackles: Presented by Sou’wester Arts

“We’re processing a lot of things going on in our world right now,” reflects Kati Claborn during a respite from touring. Along with her partner Luke Ydstie, Claborn is striving to make sense of the present by looking to the past in The Hackles’ upcoming album, A Dobtrich Did As A Dobritch Should, out on Jealous Butcher Records on November 8, 2019. “We’re looking at the big picture through individual lives,” says Claborn.  In an era rife with discord, The Hackles are using melodic, shimmering indie folk to chronicle means of control and autonomy through idiosyncratic narratives.

 Ydstie and Claborn first met in Portland in the mid-2000s after Israel Nebeker and Ryan Dobrowski of Blind Pilot recruited additional band members to flesh out the band. Still members of Blind Pilot today, Ydstie and Claborn first met at these initial band practices, and now live in Astoria, Oregon with their five-year-old daughter. After discovering how well each of their creative processes’ enrich one another’s, Ydstie and Claborn decided to form their own musical project. “I think one of the reasons why it’s so successful when Luke and I write together is that we feel very safe and open,” says Claborn. “Both of us feel like we can throw out any idea and it’s okay. We can try anything.” Co-producer Adam Selzer expands this environment of experimentation. “Going into the mixing process, we gave Adam free reign to do whatever he wanted, and he made a lot of interesting mixing choices and added effects that had a huge effect on how the album turned out.”

Though The Hackles’ upcoming record title might at first seem imbued in mystery, the  eccentric name is a nod to the life and death of 20th century Bulgarian circus impresario, Al Dobritch, who appears most markedly in “And The Show Goes On.” The chief producer of famed Circus Circus Casino in Las Vegas, Dobritch made a name for himself after escaping World War II and settling in America, eventually rubbing elbows with celebrities and marrying film star Rusty Allen. His gilded life came to a dark end when he was charged with kidnapping and, soon after, jumped to his death on the Las Vegas strip. “Dobritch went through so many crazy things in his life,” says Claborn, “And though he was able to persevere and create this incredible life, it goes to show that at the end, there are sometimes things you can’t control.”

The interwoven notions of predestined fate, as well as the hopeful antithesis of regaining power over one’s personal circumstances, stream throughout The Hackles’ upcoming release, complemented by the album’s serene sound. The duo’s propensity for glowing chords shines, though it soon becomes apparent that the expert delicacy of the couple’s guitar work only barely contains the graceful, mounting power prevalent in the meeting of Claborn and Ydstie’s voices. Similar to the tug-of-war stories that Claborn and Ydstie portray, the dynamism of the duo’s vocals never overpowers the tranquility of the chords below. Instead, both strengths support and enhance one another. “There’s a thread going through the album about the things that control us in our lives and the things that we’re able to take back,” surmises Claborn, “It’s about the impact of inevitability, the webs you can weave, and the webs that weave you.”