Laura Veirs

Laura Veirs’ haunting indie folk has taken on many shades over her sprawling, prolific career. Born in 1973, the Portland, Oregon-based singer/songwriter had little interest in becoming a musician until attending Carleton College in Minnesota, where she was introduced to Bikini Kill and Sonic Youth, inspiring her to pick up a guitar and form a punk band. After moving to Seattle, Veirs stripped down her sound, crafting sparse acoustic vignettes for her self-titled 1999 debut album. During this time, she met producer (and future husband) Tucker Martine and began to paint a more expansive Americana landscape on early albums including 2001’s The Triumphs and Travails of Orphan Mae and 2004’s Carbon Glacier. Over her first two decades, Veirs worked closely with Martine, winding her earthy poetry through brooding, baroque arrangements on releases like 2010’s July Flame and 2013’s Warp and Weft, before joining Neko Case and k.d. lang for 2016’s folk-rock stunner Case / Lang / Veirs. In 2022, however, she took the producer chair for the first time for her 12th studio album, Found Light, a poignant, rock-fuelled declaration of independence.