Laura Veirs, Karl Blau

One of the more original country singer/songwriters to emerge from the US in recent years, Porland's Laura experiments with traditional bluegrass balladry to find a unique standing point in the genre. Besides her solo material, in 2016 she also teamed up with k.d. lang and Neko Case to form a country-folk super group.

Karl Blau is a multi-instrumentalist, singer, and DIY icon who helped turn his hometown of Anacortes, Washington, into an indie-music mecca.