Once in a blue moon you come across an artist that stops you in your tracks. Manette, WA’s Alessandra Rose is blessed with an instrument of penetrating grace, her voice a siren song wrapped in silk and incense. Bright as a brass bell and edged with a warm glow of whiskey and woodsmoke, it is resonant, radiant, and absolutely hair-raising. On her new LP RODEOMOTHH (out 10/20), Rose has built a work of expansive, beguiling, psych-tinged anthemic rock & roll. Whale-song leads howl up from the depths as rolling waves of organ crash against the rhythmic cliffside. Shimmering chords echo through distant canyons, while thundering percussion rumbles along hard-pack mountain roads. Taken as a whole, RODEOMOTHH is a masterwork. A heavyweight of a record, both intentional and exceptional is arrangement and execution, and ready to take its place in the canon of iconic recordings. RODEOMOTHH was recorded at Sputnik Sound in Nashville, TN, with Grammy-winning producer / engineer Mitch Dane (The Blind Boys of Alabama). In addition to Rose on vocals and acoustic guitar, the record features guitarist Courtlan Clement (Marc Bourssard), Kevin Whitsett (Sam Williams) on bass, drummer Paul Eckberg (Amy Grant), and Charlie Lowell (Jars of Clay) on piano and synth. It was mixed by Grammy-winning engineer Vance Powell (Chris Stapleton, Jack White). Thematically, the secret to RODEOMOTHH is hidden in its name. “It’s an anagram of motherhood” explains Rose. “Every song tells a part of my journey of being a mother.” Regardless of gender or parental status, these songs of unrestrained loving, free of consequence, speak to the soul. Indeed, the tales of falling in love and the work it takes to maintain that, of the pure joy of new life and the tearing sadness of life lost, are deeply, universally, human. 

MAEVE & QUINN is an Alaska-raised, Chicago-based duo. Their new album, Another Door, is an affirmation of possibilities, especially when the future feels unclear. Anchored in the blood harmonies, lyrical melodies, and dynamic interplay of multi-instrumentalists Maris and Bryce O’Tierney (classically trained on guitar, voice, violin, piano), the album is an intimate conversation between lifelong friends - something these Alaskan twin sisters know well. Written and recorded in Chicago during the height of the pandemic, Another Door is an imaginative and genre-bending collection of alt rock-pop-folk songs that occupies its own singular sound:

"The moodiness, the eclecticness, the offbeat melodies and song structures sound familiar, like a sonic throwback to the female singer-songwriters of the 1990s and early 2000s. Think Tori Amos or Regina Spektor. But inspiration only goes so far, and what one hears in "Another Door" is an arresting brand of indie pop and rock pushing against contemporary trends. In the end, the record, like past music Maeve & Quinn have released, is something entirely of its own. Or rather, something of their own." - CHICAGO TRIBUNE

Maeve & Quinn formed in 2016. The duo’s rigorous training and performance in classical music set their foundation, launching a decorated trajectory that began in Anchorage, Alaska, and continued through their earning of performance degrees at Northwestern’s Bienen School of Music, outside Chicago. The open, majestic landscape of an Alaskan upbringing can be felt in Maeve & Quinn’s music and performances. And their lifelong friendship as twin sisters makes for a unique collaboration and songs that are multi-layered in perspective and fluid between past and present. Avid musical improvisers, the duo in their early days were influenced by the genre cross-pollination of Chicago’s music scene. They also had a formative songwriting period together in Dublin, Ireland, where Bryce was a poetry master’s student at Trinity College and both sisters were immersed in the storytelling culture of the local Irish community.

Maeve & Quinn’s catalog includes the EPs Something Overhead, Something Overhead (2018), and Star-Crossed (2021), the latter a Bandcamp New & Notable release. The duo’s newest release, Another Door (September 2023), is their first full-length album.

Maeve & Quinn are interdisciplinary artists who place their original songwriting, poetry in recitation, and instrumental music in conversation with other art forms. The sisters’ unique collaboration connects with audiences in various settings. In Chicago, they have created performance programs with the Museum of Contemporary Art, Poetry Foundation, and Steppenwolf Theatre, engaging themes of family lineage, climate change, mental health, and womanhood. The duo has premiered their symphonic works with the Chicago Composers Orchestra and Anchorage Symphony Orchestra. Music video collaborations include with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.

Brenna Bruce is a songwriter and musician based in Seattle. Following a path of curiosity and introspection, her music moves with a quiet power, balancing sharpness and tenderness with an understood patience. Bruce pulls from the tradition of vulnerable folk through delicate and crystalline vocal prowess akin to Courtney Marie Andrews and Emmylou Harris, with the simplicity and focus of Gillian Welch’s storytelling. On her forthcoming debut EP Honest Bloom, Bruce weaves ambling stories of the heart with peripheral landscapes passing through the deserts, rivers and mountains of her past in the southwest, and present in the pacific northwest. Honest Bloom inhabits spaces of liminality and cyclical growth, spinning themes of connection, belonging, and becoming, with lilting pedal steel and string arrangements, tethered by pulsing percussion and the intentional delivery of Brenna’s vocal harmonies carrying each sentiment to fruition. Honest Bloom is a capsule of time, reckoning with the ever unfolding path of being and learning life’s lessons, and Brenna Bruce is an artist burgeoning with timeless truths.