The American West + MAITA live at lille æske

Saturday, June 3rd 8pm | Door at 7:30pm
Tickets: $10-$20 (Sliding Scale)

Portland based post-americana duo, The American West is releasing their debut album, The Soot Will Bring Us Back Again, on March 17th, 2017. Their live performance is tied together by soaring harmonies, and plaintive violin, with songs that range from intimate fingerpicked folk, to half-drunk alt-country anthems. In the 2 years since forming, The American West has toured Europe twice, and spent considerable time on the road on the west coast, from British Columbia to Southern California, and out to Wyoming. The Soot Will Bring Us Back Again is flecked with pedal steel and longing harmonies as the album drifts between finger-picked folk songs and raucous country-rockers, all while the focus remains on songwriter, Matthew Zeltzer’s ragged poetry. Matthew Zeltzer and the American West has shared the stage with acts including The Milk Carton Kids, Jim Lauderdale, The Brothers Comatose, The T Sisters, Crow and the Canyon, Jaime Wyatt, and he is the former guitarist of Grammy Award winning Fantastic Negrito.

Portland indie-folk songstress MAITA music's "focused, American realist psalm...sets her far apart from her indie contemporaries (American Standard Time).” Her debut EP Waterbearer, is a rallying cry for the quiet warrior, the inquisitive seeker and the fierce lover. The record, produced by Matthew Zeltzer, and mixed by John Askew (Neko Case), witnesses an extraordinary talent on the verge, on which she is honored to be joined by Dave Depper (Death Cab for Cutie, Loch Lomond), Skip VonKuske (Portland Cello Project), Tucker Jackson (The Minus 5, The Delines), and Matthew Berger (Laura Gibson). MAITA has recently been sharpening her songs on the road, playing 120 shows—including a month-long European tour—in 2016 alone. She has kicked off 2017 with album release tours that have already taken her down the West Coast and to Europe for a month-long tour supported by ROLA Music.