Raye Zaragoza, Victoria Canal, and more on Mountain Stage

We are excited to return to the WVU Canady Creative Arts Center in Morgantown, WV as part of the .

Since 1983, Mountain Stage has been one of the most beloved programs in public radio history. Eclectic, authentic and unpredictable, the show’s varied guests have included iconic artists from John Prine and Townes Van Zandt to Wilco and Phish. Under the leadership of Grammy Award-winning country and bluegrass star Kathy Mattea since 2021, Mountain Stage continues to bring surefire energy and music discovery to parts known and unknown.

Produced by West Virginia Public Broadcasting and distributed by NPR Music, each two-hour episode is recorded in front of a live audience and can be heard every week on nearly 300 stations across America, and around the world via NPR Music and mountainstage.org

Growing up as a woman, you’re constantly told that your wedding will be the happiest day of your life. It’s the ultimate marker of your youth and allure, the moment you’ve achieved stability and have proven that - thank god - you’re desirable to a man. But as many of us know, if it’s lasting happiness, fulfillment, and understanding that you really want, it’s usually wiser to bet on yourself.

Raye Zaragoza’s Hold That Spirit is an album rooted in this realization. The Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter has always made political folk music that is informed by her identity as a woman of mixed Indigenous, Asian and Latina heritage. She gained recognition in 2016 with “In The River,” which was written to protest the Dakota Access Pipeline. When she performed a Tiny Desk Concert at NPR, she spoke and sang about making live music more economically accessible. And, she currently writes the music for Netflix's Spirit Rangers, a show featuring an all Native American writers room and cast.

As she approached 30 last year, Zaragoza started thinking specifically about the expectations placed on women as they age: what they should have achieved in their careers, the nuclear families they are expected to pursue and nurture, the way that beauty standards and ageism collude to make it more and more difficult to be seen. 29 was also the year Zaragoza got engaged and, soon after,, ended her relationship. After the engagement ended, she used what would have been her wedding budget to fund part of the production of her new album. As much as it was a practical decision, it was also one rife with symbolism: Zaragoza was investing in herself.

There’s an enduring sense of agency to these songs, which pull from buoyant indie pop like Japanese Breakfast and contemplative folk like Joni Mitchell. On tracks like the soaring pop opener “Joy Revolution,” which was a collaboration with fellow LA-based activist-artist MILCK, Zaragoza acknowledges that a big part of achieving happiness is choosing to be happy rather than waiting for your life to be perfect or feeling like you have to earn comfort and ease. She uses this album to claim joy that has always rightfully been hers and to actively mold herself into her own role model. As she says on galloping country track “Sweetheart,” “I don’t want to be a woman, crying on the floor at night. I don’t want to keep on searching for the day I feel alright.”

A feminist undercurrent unifies these songs. Meditative folk ballad “Strong Woman” was written as a commission for a friend’s daughter, but also more broadly celebrates a world led and built by women. “Not A Monster” candidly addresses Zaragoza’s eating disorder. And “Garden” grapples with all the unfair expectations placed on women as they age. Zaragoza also worked with exclusively female collaborators on the project, a rarity in an industry where less than 5% of production/engineering credits go to women. She feels that working with women allowed her the emotional safety to fully process the pain of her breakup and to make honest art about her life.

“It’s easy for me to be vulnerable with a female collaborator even the first time I meet her,” she says. “A lot of these sessions were 3 hours of us talking and therapizing before we started writing. This album is so much about what it feels like to be a woman leaving the “prime of your 20s” and processing what it means to get older, which is something which men don’t experience in the same way.”

She also felt like the songwriting process was communal, less a process of telling her specific story than one of finding ways to connect with her collaborators and share stories that resonated with all of them. For example, she worked with fellow songwriter of Indigenous heritage Hayley McLean on “Still Here,” a track about owning her culture as a woman of Akimel O'otham descent and acknowledging how Indigenous people exist in all facets of society. “The Native community in LA has been a huge part of my life since I moved here at 14,” she says. “Indigenous artists aren’t played on the radio or given space in mainstream publications enough, so I do what I can to be as proud as I can and pave the way for other artists too.” She hopes the sense of community she fostered while writing these songs shines through and, in turn, helps listeners feel less alone.

Hold That Spirit is a nuanced, complicated album because it is rooted in Zaragoza’s specific hardships, from her anxiety to her fraught relationship with work to her heartbreak, but it also looks outward and finds solace in people who have a shared understanding of those experiences. By leaning on those who make her feel seen and supported as she ventured into the world alone, she was able to remain defiantly optimistic, and inspire us all to do the same, too.

For almost two years, singer-songwriter Victoria Canal used her gift primarily as a way to process grief. The result of this transformative period was 2022’s Elegy EP, a bittersweet collection of tracks including “swan song,” hailed by Coldplay’s Chris Martin as “one of the best songs ever written.” Now, after experiencing creative and emotional catharsis, Canal is turning the camera back on herself and zooming in further than ever before. Grown from heartache and made with unabashed honesty, WELL WELL finds the artist at her most vulnerable—and her most courageous.

Canal, who received the 2023 Rising Star award at the prestigious Ivor Novellos, embraces the discomfort of self-analysis. “These days I’m writing mostly to confront things about myself in order to gain more of an understanding and acceptance of them,” she shares. She first started sowing the seeds of WELL WELL during quarantine, in part while watching the TV show Parenthood. She recognized herself in a people-pleasing character, remarking, “I’ve definitely shrunk myself down before to please everyone else. I deserve to take up space.” “Yes Man,” the first song written for the upcoming EP, sprung from this feeling: Prioritizing someone else’s comfort isn’t worth the price of losing yourself. “Well well, what do you know? / You took so much space, seems I lost my place,” she sings.

Canal challenges the habit of self-shrinking across all of WELL WELL, magnifying parts of herself that she’s never openly shared before. The gentle gut-punch of opener “Shape” delves into the complex and intimate topic of body dysmorphia. Against folky guitar and airy backing vocals, her retrospective lyricism brings to the surface internalized moments, like the lasting impact of passing cruelty (“All it takes is once/Some kid in math class likens you to a bus”) and the relationship between self-image and faith (“And I’d trade being mad at God/For liking what I’ve got”). These experiences are all too common for anyone who sits outside the status quo, and Canal reclaims her own power by bringing them to the surface on her own terms.

“She Walks In” continues to explore body image, this time from a more current perspective. “The idea of this song stems from a beautiful girl turning heads when she walks into a room. I have the experience of people staring at me, but it’s because of my limb difference,” Canal shares, “There’s an inherent yearning for people to look at me the way that they look at her.” This vulnerability comes through in her poignant reflections set against waltzing watery instrumentals. “It’s okay, I feel your rejection,” she sings in soft stacked harmonies, “I think about it all the time.” Its candid delivery and gentle rocking almost makes you forget its devastation. But she ensures that it can’t be ignored.

Canal recently made her acting debut exploring the ideas of confidence, belonging, and self-awareness with regard to limb difference in Apple TV+’s acclaimed anthology series Little America, where she brought to life the story of an El Salvadorian amputee struggling to adjust to life in Beverly Hills. She has also been featured in campaigns for Nike, LinkedIn, and Mastercard.

The EP’s commentary on comparison exists in “Braver (ft. Madison Cunningham)” as well, but served with a sugar-dipped spoon. This track chronicles the life of Canal’s mother, from growing up poor in the South to falling in love with someone halfway across the world. “You’re braver than I’ve ever been,” Canal sings, “What I’d give to have known you back then.” It’s an ode to the sacrifices of past generations, the kind of sentiment that makes you want to call your relatives simply to listen.

The warmth of “Braver” carries over into “Company,” arguably the EP’s lightest track. It centers on a simple idea repeated like a grounding mantra: “Honestly, I love your company.” The song came about quickly: Canal dreamt up the guitar part alongside a few friends, recording placeholder lyrics one line at a time until suddenly, they had completed the song. “The more that I sat with it, the more I thought the simplicity was lovely,” she reveals, “I just wanted a light love song.” The track considers the liminal space between platonic and queer love, resolving that it’s okay to live without clear definitions; what matters most is wanting someone around.

This EP marks an expansion for Canal, not just thematically, but also with regard to collaborators. Working with the likes of Sean Carey, Madison Cunningham, Tony Berg and Jacob Collier helped push the musician creatively in a way she’s never experienced before. “In past projects I’ve been on my own or working with my buddies, which is amazing,” she remarks, “But this time I got to work with some of my heroes while also holding my own in the studio.” The artist attributes WELL WELL’s cohesive sound to her clear vision and the fact that everything was mixed at Sound City by veteran engineer Joseph Lorge (Blake Mills, Perfume Genius, Jon Batiste).

WELL WELL closes with a magnum opus of lyricism and production. “Black Swan,” a song Canal describes as the “resentful older sister” of “swan song” is a haunted exploration of perfectionism and the desire to change yourself. “Still making amends with my personality, contortionist,” she sings over tortured electric guitar and a defiant stomping beat. Recorded with Phoebe Bridgers’ collaborator Tony Berg and Ben Folds’ Ryan Lerman, this track was an experiment for Canal. “Creating it was like splatter painting,” she reflects, “It was definitely new for me to go that big.” After an explosive climax, “Black Swan” retreats back into itself, closing the door to the EP with a forgiving hand.

“The phrase ‘WELL WELL’ struck me as a natural follow up to Elegy. I’ve grieved this person and now I’m dealing with what’s left,” Canal resolves, “I needed to stare myself in the face and realize that this is it. It’s a wounded rebirth.”

Host or Publisher Mountain Stage