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Welcome back to 2015’s 50 Bands in 50 Days, where we’re ushering in a new year of great local music by turning you onto some of the best local bands out there, brought to you by GigTown. Today’s feature takes us back to Olympia, WA to explore one of their most eccentric and promising voices, one Willow and the Wolf.
Willow and the Wolf is an artist whose style is beautifully difficult to describe. Simply describing it as “indie pop” or “singer-songwriter” music would definitely be apt, but the project’s music transcends the sound of any other outfit in the Pacific Northwest with those genre tags. Frequently piano-led, her music has an intimate, minimal, almost claustrophobic nature to it. The piano melodies and chord progressions take on a huge baroque pop influence, but the vocals laid on top of the instrumentation are mainly what gives Willow and the Wolf a truly striking musical edge.
Willow and the Wolf’s vocals have a very unique cadence to them, being whisper-quiet, somewhat nasally, and having a shy, standoffish nature to them, while still feeling powerful and moving. Songs like “Secret” have a dark, moody atmosphere about them without being reliant on reverb or ambient synthesizers like you might see from other shadowy singer-songwriters’ music.
While the project doesn’t have a ton of recorded music thus far, Willow and the Wolf has proven themselves, with such little recorded material, to be a worthwhile and bold musical outfit. We look forward to following whatever this project puts out in the future.
For Fans of: Fiona Apple, Perfume Genius, Lykke Li
You can follow Willow and the Wolf on Facebook and Twitter, and watch our favorite music video from the project below.
