Angie Stevens:
“Go on: Just try to find a single soul who’s seen Angie Stevens live and not been completely entranced. Backed by a stellar cast of musicians, Stevens engages audiences in a way that makes every performance feel intimate, like she’s playing her songs just for you. The amiable chanteuse has shared the bill with a wide array of performers and had every audience riveted by the end of each set. Hell, she’s so compelling, we’re pretty sure that her earnest acoustic-based rock could win over a Cephalic Carnage crowd. Bolstered by songs that are often chillingly poignant (‘Judy,’ for example, a song about her mother), Stevens makes the icicles form on your spine the minute she takes the stage.” – Westword, Best Singer / Songwriter of Denver
Rachael Kilgour is a Canadian-American songwriter and performing artist whose plain-spoken, heart-centered work and intimate performances have endeared her to listeners and fellow artists alike. The 2015 grand prize winner of the international NewSong Music Competition and winner of the 2017 Kerrville New Folk Contest, Kilgour has been featured at NYC’s Lincoln Center, at The Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. and at the Sundance Film Festival.
Following the success of her 2017 album Rabbit in the Road (“…a heartfelt slice of master crafted indie folk brimming with the battle-tested capacity to endure the worst in others” – Billboard) and subsequent 2019 EP, Game Changer (“Kilgour’s unapologetic lyrics are a real treat” – Rolling Stone), Kilgour spent the COVID-19 shut-downs quietly laying the groundwork for her next full-length release.
The exquisite forthcomig collection, My Father Loved Me (due September 2023), is a tribute to her late father and was produced by JUNO Award-winning songwriter Rose Cousins and recorded in the senior Kilgour’s native Canada. In the spare, often gutting language for which she is known, Kilgour gives us a complex portrait of a man as seen through his daughter’s eyes. With unwavering acuity she poses questions about identity, inheritance, and grief, and affirms the value of one ordinary working man’s life to an often indifferent world.
With this album, Kilgour has revealed something about what the living owe each other. “In our mourning rituals, I think we’re really convincing ourselves that our own lives matter, that we will have an impact and be remembered. My father had a very average life for a man of his time, a small life that didn’t involve grandeur, of any kind at all.” Kilgour thinks before speaking again. “I needed to prove to myself—and to the world—that lives lived like that are still worth celebrating, still worth living.”