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On Valley Maker’s second full-length album, Rhododendron, songwriter Austin Crane sings about movement – from one kind of belief to another, from place to place, through time. This new record from Crane, a Seattle-based musician and PhD student in Human Geography, reflects both the rootedness and rootlessness that shapes his songwriting on the precipice of his third decade. Like his noted inspirations Jason Molina, Bill Fay, and Gillian Welch before him, he speaks to the strange and transitory ways we mark time through our lives. Years pass and fold in his cosmic American songs.

Crane formed Valley Maker in 2010 with a self-titled collection of songs written for his undergrad thesis project at the University of South Carolina, tracing existential questions around biblical origin narratives, as embedded in his spiritually-infused Southern upbringing. Similar themes shade his vision on Rhododendron, which follows 2015’s When I Was A Child. Prophetic and apocalyptic language shapes Crane’s lyrics, but his outlook is not bound by dogma. Instead, he uses the metaphors of faith to explore the ineffable and to navigate the intersection of belief, time, place, and the political present. Much of the album was written leading up to the 2016 US presidential election and in the months after as Crane was traveling for his PhD research on migration, borders, and humanitarianism. Tellingly, it grapples with what it means to share space with others as popular political discourses veer towards exclusion.

Named for the common plant which springs up in both Crane’s native south and his current home in Washington, Rhododendron speaks to how the places and moments we occupy become reflections of ourselves. In his careful, open-hearted songs, characters move from place to place, traveling through time and over lines on maps, driven to encounter the mysteries of existence and glimpse shared humanity. Though lyrically contemplative, the music floats. Crane’s songs retain their folk-based nature – they are the kind of songs that stand on their own with his lone voice and guitar – but they bloom paired with surprising rhythms and arrangements.

The album was recorded between two locales. In Portland, Oregon, Crane teamed with producer/engineer
Chaz Bear of Toro Y Moi. Longtime friends and schoolmates from the University of South Carolina,
Bear and Crane laid the groundwork for the record over four days, playing all instruments in tracking four songs between themselves. The record’s remaining songs were tracked in Seattle, Washington with producer/engineer Trevor Spencer (Father John Misty, Fleet Foxes). Having worked together on Valley Maker’s previous release, Spencer and Crane’s Rhododendron sessions aimed for imaginative, groove- oriented arrangements that remain concisely in step with the individual songs’ qualities, enlisting
drummer James Barone (Beach House, Tennis) and bassist Eli Thomson (Father John Misty), along with
Brandon Camarda on trumpet, and Andrew Swanson on saxophone. Amy Fitchette, a longtime collaborator whose roots with Valley Maker stretch back to the Southeast, provides richly layered vocal harmonies across the album to round out Rhododendron’s lush but spacious sound.

From the streamlined indie rock of opener “A Couple Days” to the swirling psychedelia of “Be Born Today,” from the soulful horns of “Rise Up” to the ambient touches of closer “River Bend My Mind,” the album demonstrates Crane’s distilled approach, his solidly built songs blooming with tasteful arrangements and touches. Out October 12, 2018 on Frenchkiss Records, Rhododendron is an album
about transition, about leaving, but also arriving, a document of the journeys in-between.

“Formed by brothers Ethan and Asher Payne in 2010, Easter Island creates panoramic, post-rock inspired dream pop. Behind the wall of towering drums, glassy guitars, and the forceful tide of synthesizers, hide soft-spoken melodies, tender harmonies, and understated musings on the subtle, yet visceral moments in life. Often compared to sonic pioneers of the 90s and 00s, Explosions In Sky, My Bloody Valentine, Pedro The Lion, and Sigur Rós, Easter Island makes no compromise to explore unknown sonic territory, embodying the “feeling that you’d stumbled onto something great…knowing that you had a potential game changer in your hands” (Pop Matters). In 2011, Easter Island’s “Proud” from the debut EP, Better Things, was featured on ABC’s Off The Map. Their debut LP, Frightened, was released July 2012.“

Following a long stint in the role of harmony singer for several bands in Charleston, South Carolina, Grace Joyner made the decision to move to center stage with the release of her EP Young Fools in the Spring of 2014.

Grace Joyner on her EP – “Young Fools serves to reflect on a difficult, yet incredibly important time in my life.  I think there is something valuable in admitting your mistakes, as well as recognizing the power within you to leave them behind.  Somewhere in the middle of learning that getting hurt does not make you weak, I started writing music.”

Where Young Fools served as Joyner’s introduction to songwriting, a chance to explore her musical muse and tread her own artistic path, her debut LP, Maybe Sometimes in Cis here to reveal what she has found along the way. Teaming up again with producer and engineer, Wolfgang Zimmerman, Joyner uses Maybe Sometimes in C to further define her musical perspective and showcase her maturation as a songwriter. Addressing unrequited love, meeting yourself in a moment of failure, and most notably the importance of taking action, Maybe Sometimes in C reflects on moving on from the time of heartbreak and into a place of independence and self-assurance.

The Grace Joyner band consists of four members, Amber Grace Joyner on keys & lead vocals, Camille Rhoden on keys and harmonies, Nic Jenkins on drums, and Joe Chang on bass.