Chris Bathgate is a celebrated singer/songwriter whose stark, heartbroken songs (similar in tone to those of Will Oldham or Damien Jurado) earned him a strong local following throughout Southeast Michigan before an international fan base joined the fold. Emerging in the early 2000s with a sound rooted in bluegrass and folk, he gradually incorporated more diverse instrumentation and developed a songwriting style that, beginning with 2007's A Cork Tale Wake, placed him more in line with his alternative singer/songwriter contemporaries. Bathgate drew comparisons to Wilco with 2011's Salt Year, and went in a more meditative direction on 2022's The Significance Peaches, an album that eschewed guitar for parlor organ and drone while remaining thematically tied to career-spanning rural inspirations.