Leo Moon Trio with Caliko & Shiloh Mae

Leo Moon is the solo incarnation of actor, singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, Brian Adrian Koch. California born and Oregon raised, Brian has been active in the Portland theater, film & music scene since arriving in 2000. He was recently awarded best actor at the Toronto Independent Film Festival. As well as Best Actor at the 2018 Portland Comedy Film Festival.
He is a current and founding member of indie rock band Blitzen Trapper (2000 - present), and formerly of psychedelic folk duo Dead Lee (2017-2023). Appearing now as the head of a cinematic psych folk trio, his minimal and haunting urban prairie tunes are stripped down paeans to the glorious and filmic moments of life; harmonica spattered psalms to the mysterious, whirling beauty of it all. He is joined by Kate O’ Brien on violin and vocals and Fred Thompson on lap steel & guitar. The addition of Kate & Fred open the emotional landscape of Leo’s cinematic musical scenery like a key to a lock. Leo has most recently opened for English troubadour Wesley Stace as well as Wild Horses, Loch Lomond & Small Paul. He’s also appeared at Shady Pines Festival in Sandy OR, Washougal Songcraft Festival and Portland Folk Festival. He is preparing to release a full length solo album, The Fool, on Time Release Records and he is also well into recording his follow up.

https://iamleomoon.com/

https://www.instagram.com/iamleomoon_

For Fans of Blind Pilot, Gregory Alan Isakov & Elliott Smith

AC SAPPHIRE AND KENDALL LUJAN

Portland artist Ac Sapphire returns with the decadent new album Dec. 32nd, songs from a cycle that honors Sapphire at her best: guitar, and vocals front and center; celebrations of the songwriter, the shredder, that she is. Sapphire sits serenely among the songwriting class that is our generation's Laurel Canyon sound. Ac's music has a grasp on the cosmic side of Americana. She resides in Portland, but was once a desert denizen, and her southwestern exposure shows in the wide open, dusty, romantic sound of each song. She's the winner of Relix Sonic Showdown, a finalist in the John Lennon Songwriting Contest. She's shared the stage with artists like Son Little, long time friend Sunny War, and even been featured on a Shirley Manson (Garbage) song. Ac has played the Philadelphia Folk Festival, Treefort Music Fest. Even as this album is being released, she's finishing recording another with NewSong Music as the winner of their 2022 contest.
Sapphire makes a meta-modern version of Americana. Honoring the cross of hippies and cowboys that began the genre, embroidering thoughtful songwriting with cosmic consideration, emotional rock n roll, and western vista inspired folk rock. She’s capable of eviscerating emotions with harmonies and heated hard hitting love songs. Sapphire mines the same golden, glowing vein of Courtney Marie Andrews, Kassi Valazza, Madison Cunningham, or Mikaela Davis. She's a multi-instrumentalist and composer whose songs take the earnest torch of cosmic country and carry it forward, blazing a trail through a jaded, junk-future. Sapphire sings whole-heartedly, and makes cover-to-cover albums fit for long-play listening, sitting and smoking, soul searching, desert dazing.
The results of Sapphire's serendipitous wandering can be heard on the newer tracks on Dec. 32nd. On "Chaparral Bottom", her song for long-time friend and collaborator Victoria Williams. Sapphire romanticizes the Mojave, and the peripatetic and perilous lives of working musicians, with voice and warbling electric while accompanied by a pack of coyotes yelping in the distance.
You don't have to know what Sapphire is singing about for it to strike you. Her voice will penetrate your consciousness, your soul, the vibrations working from the inside out to shake tension and tumult loose. You'll weep, you'll cheer, you'll be won over. "Oblivion" sees a hail of harmonies like furies singing around an acoustic guitar. "bi" takes you for a ride: thrumming electric guitars sound like tread on hot tar, and Sapphire sings at the top of her lungs, as if to alone to her own radio.
Dec. 32nd comes at a point of great upheaval for the artist. Owed to her ability to make friends and fans wherever she goes, she can book a gig anywhere in the country at a moment's notice, and has friends and fans all over the US and Europe. At the same time, her father -her first manager, and her biggest fan, has been battling cancer for the last two years. Ac also feels the pull of time as a singer/songwriter who is twenty years into a music industry at its most volatile point in history. Still, she's cranking out work, on tour, recording constantly.
Sapphire is at her mesmerizing best on songs like "Demon Sneeze", with just vocals and guitar sounding like a gorgeous chorus in a gargantuan church. A voice so strong that it seems to harmonize with its own echoes, Sapphire's songs are cathedrals unto themselves.
Each effort from Ac Sapphire is saturated in sentimentality, parts of these albums are views into the soul of the person. Sapphire has an ability to imbue an album with the ghosts of her past, effectively giving them a home. This saturates her work in sentimentality, making songs like "W**d Money" and "Stringbreaker" intensely personal, and poignant heartbreakers. Each song comes with stories about Sapphire's travels.

Portland, Oregon based artist, Kendall Lujan embarks on her first full length album “Lucky Penny’ released February 21st, 2025. After releasing her Debut self titled EP Spring 2023, featured on official playlist for Spotify and Apple Music. Lujan has also gaining attention from NPR’s Tiny Desk, MTV, Rolling Stone Germany, and the John Lennon Songwriting contest. Recently voted one of Portland’s ‘Willamette Weekly’ Best New Bands 2024. Sharing the stage with Amos Lee, Frazey Ford (of The Be Good Tanyas), Allie Crow Buckley, Early James, and The Magnetic Fields.

‘Lucky Penny’ features many genres Including Jazz, Folk, Bossa Nova and Indie-Rock. The natural singer and songwriter put together a studio band with Micah Hummel (drums), Colin Schmidt (bass) and Alex Milsted (piano) and recorded at the Map Room Studio in Portland, Oregon with Dominik Schmidt producing. Her forthcoming first full length album “Lucky Penny’ is set to be released February 21st.

Her writing is real, introspective and reflective. After touring the songs in Europe four times in 1.5 years, Lujan is ready to show her versatility and growth as an artist. The first single released late March 2024 titled ‘Goodbyes’. The song explores mourning and loss of important people in your world. In the sense of ending romantic relationships it explores the process of knowing when someone isn’t suited for your life or growth any longer. Lujan writes “I wrote this song to remind myself that even though things are hard you will meet those people who stick around eventually.” Even though people come and go in your world, remembering that there will be lots of cries and laughs on your journey to finding those people who see you for who you are. The Song can be heard in Peacocks ‘Long Bight River’ starring Amanda Seyfried, tying together the final scene of the series over the rolling credits. The main hook stating: ‘it takes a lot of goodbyes to get to forever.

Shiloh Mae is a Portland alt folk singer-songwriter with a penchant for melancholy but a bent toward hope. She released her debut EP, All My Metaphors, in 2022, and has been building toward her next body of work since moving to Portland in 2023. She cites influences from 70's folk classics, to 90s soft rock, to many of the great singer-songwriters of today. Fans of Lizzy McAlpine, Maggie Rogers, and Kacey Musgraves will love her lyric-centric, melody forward songs, with vocals many liken to the Cranberries.

https://www.shilohmaemusic.com/

https://www.instagram.com/shilohmae

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