Event Type: Performing Arts

Melding the experience of taming wild horses, escaping wildfires, and birthing lambs with the mystical soundscape that nature inspires, Ismay has sharpened their musical craft over the last decade while living and working on their family ranch in Northern California. With Songs of Sonoma Mountain, their debut full length album recorded in the family barn and released in 2020, Ismay realized a contemplative vision blending field recordings and intricate melodies with live, inventive composition. In the wake of Songs of Sonoma Mountain, Ismay has developed the sound further, letting their singular melodies breathe, interact, and come to fruition through a full band groove with psychedelic color in upcoming releases. Ismay represents the collaborative work driven by singer songwriter Avery Hellman, who grew up backstage at their grandfather’s Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival, where they were inspired early on by artists such as Emmylou Harris, Gillian Welch, and Hazel Dickens.

Vandoliers are a uniquely Texas band, distilling the Lone Star State’s vast and diverse musical identity into a raucous, breakneck vibe that’s all their own. After spending much of the last three years furiously writing and recording music, this Dallas-Fort Worth six-piece is back with The Vandoliers, a new album that proves these rowdy, rollicking country punks are tighter, more cohesive and more sonically compelling than ever.

John Moreland doesn’t have the answers, and he’s not sure anyone does. But he’s still curious, basking in the comfort of a question, and along the way, those of us listening feel moved to ask our own. “I don’t ever want to sound like I have answers, because I don’t,” he says. “These songs are all questions. Everything I write is just trying to figure stuff out.”