Last year, Minnesota-based violinist and singer Gaelynn Lea released All the Roads That Lead Us Home, a haunting collection of fiddle tunes, indie-folk, and ethereal Americana.
This year sees another big musical moment: Gaelynn won NPR’s Tiny Desk Contest.
A video of her performing an original song called “Someday We’ll Linger in the Sun” was chosen from over 6000 entries. The tune highlights Gaelynn’s unique style, using a loop pedal to create a sonic foundation with her violin, which she plays like a cello due to a congenital disability.
It’s a powerful song with a trance-like, yet catchy melody and a kind of understated momentum. (No wonder Gaelynn is a sometimes-collaborator with Low’s Alan Sparhawk.)
Also, listen for the beautiful vocal trills at the ends of some of the verses.
Congrats to Gaelynn on writing a moving song that impressed the panel of judges, including Bob Boilen and Robin Hilton of NPR’s All Songs Considered, Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys, Holly Laessig and Jess Wolfe of Lucius, and Son Little.
For more of Gaelynn’s story and why the judges selected her as the Tiny Desk Contest winner, click HERE.
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Chris Robley is an acclaimed singer-songwriter and award-winning poet from Maine.
His Beatlesque indie-pop and milltown Americana songs have been praised by The Associated Press, No Depression, KCRW, The LA Times, Boston Globe, NPR, American Songwriter, and others.
His poems have appeared in Poetry Magazine, Prairie Schooner, The Poetry Review, and more.
Robley has received a Maine Literary Award in Poetry, Boulevard’s Emerging Writers Prize for Poetry, and in 2016 was selected by former US-poet laureate Robert Pinsky as a finalist for the Dorset Prize.