John Craigie and Blind Pilot at Denver Botanic Gardens

This concert is part of Denver Botanic Gardens Summer Concert Series presented by UMB and produced with Swallow Hill Music - click here for full series info.

For over a decade, John Craigie has made music that brings people in, not with spectacle but with sincerity and songs that feel like conversations. His new album I Swam Here was written and produced by Craigie and recorded between New Orleans and Astoria. Seven tracks were cut at Deslonde St Studios with musicians handpicked by Sam Doores of The Deslondes. Following 2024’s Pagan Church, which spent six weeks at #1 on the Americana Albums chart, I Swam Here feels both expansive and intimate, shaped by the musical history of the Gulf Coast and the stillness of the Pacific Northwest.

The first Blind Pilot album in eight years, In the Shadow of the Holy Mountain emerged from a period of artistic crisis and the radical transformation of their creative ecosystem. “I went through a few years where I wasn’t able to write—I tried therapy, I read books on writer’s block, I went on writing trips, but nothing was helping,” says Israel Nebeker, frontman for the Oregon-bred band. After stepping back and reimagining his songwriting approach, Nebeker challenged himself to write an entire album in a month, then brought those songs to his bandmates with a newfound sense of receptivity. “I told myself that whatever songs came through in that month would be for the love of the band and music we make together,” says Nebeker. “Instead of being controlling in the studio, I wanted to let the songs live and breathe with the band as an entity. By the time we finished, it was the most joy we’d ever had in making an album together.”