Oregon singer/songwriter LAURA GIBSON is a remarkable lyricist with an unforgettable voice, writing about timeless questions of the human condition. In past she has collaborated with Calexico, The Dodos and Colin Meloy (of The Decemberists), and her new album, Empire Builder, will be released April 1 on Barsuk Records. 

“The sound of a confident artist stretching her own limits, without losing sight of the warmth, richness, subtlety and haunted beauty that made her worth celebrating in the first place.” NPR / National Public Radio 

"As a songwriter she's preoccupied with those timeless questions of the human condition...Themes of love, loss, regret, and mortality crop up often, and, significantly, they're well-served by the surrounding songcraft." Pitchfork

Following a spur-of-the-moment cross-country trip with a pair of fiery European girls, Vikesh Kapoor left school for a brief yet inspiring stint as a mason's apprentice. The America he had previously known resided narrowly between his childhood home in rural Pennsylvania and the New England university he left home for. Alongside his parents' own immigrant struggles, these experiences quickly witnessed Kapoor to the scope of the American dream.

A few years later, Kapoor performed at Howard Zinn's memorial service in Boston, in front of Zinn's family and colleagues (including Noam Chomsky). Roused by Zinn's lifelong battle against class/race injustice, Kapoor spent the next two years in Portland, Oregon working on his full-length debut record. The Ballad Of Willy Robbins, a concept album loosely based on a newspaper article, chronicles the brutal but hopeful story of a working class man who slowly loses everything: ambitions, health, family and shelter. It's a worker's tale, less specific to the blue-collar life as it is about anyone struggling to make something of themselves.

The Ballad Of Willy Robbins was co-produced by Adam Selzer (M. Ward) and features Nate Query (Decemberists, Black Prairie), Jeff Ratner (Langhorne Slim) and Birger Olsen (Denver).