Shelby Earl
Shelby Earl’s first two albums earned the kind of raves any musician would kill for. Upon hearing her 2011 debut, Burn the Boats, NPR’s Ann Powers called Earl her “new favorite songwriter,” and she wasn’t alone. Accolades followed from Rolling Stone to the Wall Street Journal and a million music sites in between that positioned her somewhere to the left of Neko Case, a few blocks from Sharon Van Etten, catercorner to Angel Olsen. She toured everywhere, playing with the likes of Loudon Wainwright, Rhett Miller, and Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie, who spoke for many people when he said Earl had “the most heartbreakingly beautiful voice in Seattle.”
Two years later, she followed up with the equally powerful Swift Arrows (produced by Damien Jurado), and returned to the touring trenches, startling audiences around the world with songs that laid bare an inner landscape full of darkness and loss, as well as the defiant resolution not to be consumed by them. Both records are gorgeous, painstakingly crafted, and, not to put too fine a point on anything, full of heavy emotional weather. (Not for nothing did Powers observe that Earl’s writes “for those of us who have been through a few things.”)
Smokey Brights (closing set)
“A little bit Death Cab, a little bit Springsteen, Smokey Brights range from the mellow to the big, bold, and rockin’.”
Seattle Magazine
"This Seattle band’s debut full-length is a promising set of moody, ‘70s-influenced rock and pop with mostly dark, well-crafted songs combining warm, reverberating guitars, eerie keyboards, driving rhythms and gorgeous harmonies."
Don Yates, KEXP
"What the Smokeys have done is find the through line between scruffy blue-collar rock, new wave, Memphis soul, and shoegazer atmospherics. It’s right there on the title track that opens the new record: Michael Kalnoky’s textural guitar and the rush of Kim West’s synths are cut through by Ryan Devlin’s slurred, ragged voice, and it’s like hearing Bruce Springsteen narrate a futuristic film noir. On 'Catacomb,' West and Devlin harmonize with the forlorn beauty of X’s Exene Cervenka and John Doe on a goth tip, as Kalnoky’s six-string switches off between colorful soloing and concise post-punk momentum. Sprinkles of psychedelia ('Windjammer') and swooning folk balladry ('Waiting on a Light') surface as well. An unerring knack for melody and hooks keeps these seemingly contradictory plates spinning. The Smokeys’ formidable technical chops never get in the way of a deep soul groove (as on the gorgeous, slow-burning 'If I Can’t Change Your Mind'), or an anthemic chorus ('Put Your Guns Away'), and they deliver a go-for-broke live experience. I’ve long given up on predicting a Next Big Thing among Northwest bands, but the combination of adventuresome risk-taking and universal catchiness on Taste for Blood could really reach beyond state borders in a big way, if given the chance."
Tony Kay, The Sun Break
Quinn DeVeaux
Quinn DeVeaux has the smoothest yet dirty spank you voice we've heard in decades. With all the style and subtlety of the great soul/blues singers of the earth bound golden days. His honest and telling delivery grabs you and paints a story on the wall of your mind where you’ll long to stay and admire the view.
Shelby Earl
Shelby Earl’s first two albums earned the kind of raves any musician would kill for. Upon hearing her 2011 debut, Burn the Boats, NPR’s Ann Powers called Earl her “new favorite songwriter,” and she wasn’t alone. Accolades followed from Rolling Stone to the Wall Street Journal and a million music sites in between that positioned her somewhere to the left of Neko Case, a few blocks from Sharon Van Etten, catercorner to Angel Olsen. She toured everywhere, playing with the likes of Loudon Wainwright, Rhett Miller, and Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie, who spoke for many people when he said Earl had “the most heartbreakingly beautiful voice in Seattle.”
Two years later, she followed up with the equally powerful Swift Arrows (produced by Damien Jurado), and returned to the touring trenches, startling audiences around the world with songs that laid bare an inner landscape full of darkness and loss, as well as the defiant resolution not to be consumed by them. Both records are gorgeous, painstakingly crafted, and, not to put too fine a point on anything, full of heavy emotional weather. (Not for nothing did Powers observe that Earl’s writes “for those of us who have been through a few things.”)
Smokey Brights (closing set)
“A little bit Death Cab, a little bit Springsteen, Smokey Brights range from the mellow to the big, bold, and rockin’.”
Seattle Magazine
"This Seattle band’s debut full-length is a promising set of moody, ‘70s-influenced rock and pop with mostly dark, well-crafted songs combining warm, reverberating guitars, eerie keyboards, driving rhythms and gorgeous harmonies."
Don Yates, KEXP
"What the Smokeys have done is find the through line between scruffy blue-collar rock, new wave, Memphis soul, and shoegazer atmospherics. It’s right there on the title track that opens the new record: Michael Kalnoky’s textural guitar and the rush of Kim West’s synths are cut through by Ryan Devlin’s slurred, ragged voice, and it’s like hearing Bruce Springsteen narrate a futuristic film noir. On 'Catacomb,' West and Devlin harmonize with the forlorn beauty of X’s Exene Cervenka and John Doe on a goth tip, as Kalnoky’s six-string switches off between colorful soloing and concise post-punk momentum. Sprinkles of psychedelia ('Windjammer') and swooning folk balladry ('Waiting on a Light') surface as well. An unerring knack for melody and hooks keeps these seemingly contradictory plates spinning. The Smokeys’ formidable technical chops never get in the way of a deep soul groove (as on the gorgeous, slow-burning 'If I Can’t Change Your Mind'), or an anthemic chorus ('Put Your Guns Away'), and they deliver a go-for-broke live experience. I’ve long given up on predicting a Next Big Thing among Northwest bands, but the combination of adventuresome risk-taking and universal catchiness on Taste for Blood could really reach beyond state borders in a big way, if given the chance."
Tony Kay, The Sun Break
Quinn DeVeaux
Quinn DeVeaux has the smoothest yet dirty spank you voice we've heard in decades. With all the style and subtlety of the great soul/blues singers of the earth bound golden days. His honest and telling delivery grabs you and paints a story on the wall of your mind where you’ll long to stay and admire the view.
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