Sean Hayes is a Bay Area singer-songwriter who makes music to dance to or cry to, or maybe both at the same time. He was born in New York City, raised in North Carolina, and honed his earliest musical chops in a band playing Irish and old-time tunes — but his unique style of deeply felt, R&B-inflected folk really matured during his two decades singing and playing in cafes, bars, and night clubs of San Francisco. His voice layers wonder and heartache upon grit and gravel, sex and soul. His lyrics carry an unpretentious wisdom. He’s dueted with Aimee Mann; been covered by the Be Good Tanyas; and toured with Anais Mitchell (performing songs from Hadestown, before it was an award-winning Broadway show). His songs have appeared on NPR, NBC and HBO.

Gold-selling Esmé Patterson releases her long-awaited 5th full-length album, Notes from Nowhere, early this October; creating a genre-avoidant musical realm that blooms with honesty and magic. Now living in the woods of Tennessee, the Colorado-born singer/songwriter never fails to give her devoted following what they want - something completely new yet somehow familiar. Esmé emerged from the wreckage of a crowded Colorado folk experiment (Paper Bird) and struck out on her own path in a 2012 solo debut, All Princes, I. Her followup was an AMA-nominated Song of the Year that went Gold in the US and Canada, landed Patterson performances on Letterman and Conan, and brought sold-out shows nationwide. Predictably unpredictable, she deftly ditched the folk/americana tags to offer barbed responses to male-gaze hits in 2015's Woman to Woman, then to death, sex, and feedback in 2016's fanged We Were Wild, from which her performance on NPR’s Tiny Desk derived. Ever provocative, poignant, polymorphic, and prescient (her last album, the apocalypse-themed There Will Come Soft Rains, was released on the first day of Covid19 lockdowns in March 2020), Esmé’s latest release, Notes from Nowhere, returns to the (super)natural world, evoking the chill of dead winter, parched forest lightning, midday moons, and the cicada hum of summer swamps. Esmé’s intense performances arrest her audience in ears-open shared contemplation. Her music churns and crackles until you find yourself frozen, staring into the fire.