Johanna Rose is a New Orleans-based singer, songwriter, upright bassist, and street performer making music that lives somewhere between jazz and the gutter. Her sound — smoky, sultry, sometimes chaotic — walks the line between beauty and grit. With vocals that can cut or soothe, and bass lines that feel like heartbeat and tension at once, Rose builds songs that don’t ask permission. It’s jazz with a crooked grin — rooted in tradition, but not staying there.
With the support of a rotating cast of bandmates, Ellie Jackson delivers determined vulnerability and emotional exploration through guitars, stories, amplification and a careful balance of harmony and dissonance. Ellie blurs the lines between poetry, literature, activism, music, comedy, conversation, and hopes you leave braver than you arrived.
Old Pup is a warmly haunted folk outfit led by Milwaukee-based pedal steel player/songwriter, Will Hansen, who writes lyrically vivid (at-times experimental) country-tinged songs. Sophomore album, Spider Towns releases independently on February 28 & features intimate, ethereal recordings captured in living rooms, warehouse hallways, & wide-open fields spanning Milwaukee, New Orleans, & New Mexico. A mighty cast of friends & collaborators, including core members Ben Boehm, Ellie Jackson, Drue DeVente & Nate Kinsman, & Johanna Rose seamlessly enter & exit the songs, adding touches of personality & texture throughout. Hansen’s lyrical dexterity is at the forefront of this latest collection, seamlessly weaving the everyday with the interstellar. In the words of songwriter Chris Acker, “Old Pup is Rosetta-stoned.”