Peter Mulvey & Nathaniel Riley

Doors 6PM/Show 7PM

Peter Mulvey has been a songwriter, road-dog, raconteur, and almost-poet since before he can remember. In 1989 he spent a year in Ireland, busking on the streets of Dublin and hitchhiking to whatever gigs he could find. Back stateside, he spent a couple years gigging through the bars of his native Midwest before taking off for Boston, where he returned to subway busking and coffeehouses. Small shows led to larger shows, which eventually led to regional and then national touring. The wheels have not stopped since.

Twenty albums, one illustrated book, thousands of live performances, a TEDx talk, a decades-long association with the National Youth Science Camp, opening tours and gigs for luminaries such as Ani DiFranco, Greg Brown, Emmylou Harris and Chuck Prophet, appearances on NPR, an annual autumn tour by bicycle, emceeing festivals, hosting his own Lamplighter Sessions for years in Boston and in Wisconsin… he has built his life’s work on collaboration, on an instinct for the eclectic and the vital.

Nathaniel Riley, a folk singer/songwriter from South Dakota, put in his time working the small family farm and recording melancholic melodies in his basement. Treading with years of grief that constructed a cloud full of songs that Nathaniel lugged to Colorado began the process of his debut full length album, “Bird Songs”

Nathaniel’s songscapes lean on your heartstrings, unpacking melodies like a nostalgic lucid dream. Acoustically driven, wistful lyricism and ambient instrumentation provide the bedrock for his contemporary folktales. Compiling miles of desolation, heartache, introspection and memories of the forest and the prairie’s whistle that convey him to persist. Empowering his songs their role, to be a beacon on the hill.

The sound and songs arrived abundantly, easily and honestly. Nathaniel began recording his album “Bird Songs”, with Aaron Youngberg at Swingfingers Recording Studios in Fort Collins, Colorado in September of 2020.

Darren Garvey came on as a producer for the record, bringing a grass-roots perspective and an experimental, contemporary ear.

“I always loved pushing the boundaries of genres and wanted to create something familiar to myself in a couple different ways. One of which was to bring ambient ethereal sounds to the record that may not be commonly found on records claiming to be primarily folk,” says Riley.

“I love the process of recording and the almost immortal aspect it provides,” Riley says. “You will forever hear the person’s skin on the strings, the breath before they sing. Living proof of somebody being alive, and it remains there, like a little memory box of sound forever. Itself, never changing.”

Host or Publisher Swallow Hill Music