KQED Choses our Record as one of the 10 Bay Area Albums of 2020!
We were amazed to find that KQED Arts named our debut LP Songs of Sonoma Mountain as one of "The 10 Best Bay Area Albums of 2020"! We are honored to be on this list alongside amazing artists like Thao & the Down Down Stay Down and Kronos Quartet, and are very grateful to have been selected. Don't forget to give it a listen or visit our shop to get vinyl, cd, or poster
"In 2017, something spared Petaluma from the fires. It wasn’t a first responder, a quick-thinking housemate or even a sign from above. Sonoma Mountain, where songwriter Avery Hellman lives on a ranch, seems to have protected the North Bay town: Fires have a hard time descending downhill, and Petaluma contains less fast-burning vegetation than surrounding areas, which bought firefighters time. Hellman’s debut full-length album, recorded under their folk project Ismay, is set on Sonoma Mountain, and spends its eight tracks saying thank you to the land. Opener “A Song in Praise of Sonoma Mountain” imagines the flora and fauna of the ranch singing their own expressions of joy, while “When I Was Younger I Cried” uses river rocks and mountain sides as metaphors for gender identity. It’s an utterly lovely feat of folk imbued with gentle gratitude for Northern California. —Jody Amable"
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