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Saturday, April 16th, 2016

7:30pm

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CHRIS PUREKA
It’s rare for an artist to bridge the divide between critical acclaim and dedicated fan engagement. Chris Pureka is a Portland-based singer-songwriter whose body of work has resonated deeply with these seemingly disparate milieus. Her bold vulnerability in processing the intimacies of her life in song has long appealed to those listeners who crave authenticity. Now, five years coming, she shares with us another powerful entry in her life’s work, her sixth release, the aptly titled, Back in the Ring.

Chris’s elegant emotionality as a vocalist, and her flair and immediacy as a lyricist have garnered her favorable comparisons to Gillian Welch, Ryan Adams, Bruce Springsteen, and Patty Griffin. She’s earned accolades from such distinguished taste-making outlets as The New York Times, Paste, Magnet, Billboard.com, and The AllMusic Guide. She’s shared the stage with such diverse and esteemed artists as Dar Williams, The Lumineers, The Cowboy Junkies, Gregory Alan Isakov, Martin Sexton, and Ani DiFranco. Along the way, Chris has remained fiercely independent, selling nearly 50,000 albums through her own label, Sad Rabbit Records.

Chris’s journey in music mirrors her path toward self-discovery. At 16, writing songs became a way of journaling. “I was shy and introverted, and songwriting was a very personal process. I never had any intention of performing,” she shares. Post high school, she went on to complete a biology degree at Wesleyan University, and afterwards, worked in a microbiology research lab at Smith College. Meanwhile, she established a music career parallel to her biology work through touring and issuing a clutch of well-received indie releases. In 2006, when Chris found herself turning down too many opportunities as a musician, she shifted her priorities to become a full-time artist.

Her latest album, Back in the Ring, is Chris’s first studio full length since 2010’s critically acclaimed How I Learned to See in the Dark. “I’m not interested in releasing songs I can’t get behind or records I don’t love,” she says of the five-year span between albums. The title of her latest playfully suggests something of an artistic comeback, but it also references the album’s themes of relationship conflict and making the decision to fight back against dark inner demons.

“My music is the outward expression of the work I’m doing internally. What I do comes from my experiences, and I strive to express these experiences authentically. Speaking my truth, and being myself, is the way that I connect with people,” Chris confides. Her rise as an esteemed artist with captivating emotional integrity has been organic and always on her own terms. For someone who never had an intention of being a professional musician, it’s been a life of far-reaching changes and unexpected rewards.

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“Back in the Ring” will be released in conjunction with a two-month U.S. Tour on April 1, 2016

CRYS MATTHEWS
Crys Matthews blends Americana, folk, jazz, blues, bluegrass and funk into a bold, complex performance steeped in traditional melodies and punctuated by honest, original lyrics. Having been compared to everyone from Toshi Reagon to Tracy Chapman to Ruthie Foster, Matthews’ eclectic infusion of genres has won her honorable mentions at the 2013 and 2014 Mid-Atlantic Song Contest and extensive radio play from Woman of Substance radio to WTJU-Charlottesville and WMRA-Harrisonburg to KBOO-Portland.

Equally at home in an acoustic listening room as she is on stage at large music festivals, Matthews has quickly gathered a loyal following on the east coast playing such prestigious venues as Jammin’ Java, The Hamilton and Busboys and Poets. Matthews’ festival and showcase roster has included SXSW, the 40th Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival, Folk Alliance International, 30A Songwriters Festival (which she will be performing at again in January 2016), Northeast Regional Folk Alliance and many more.

When Matthews entered a talent show at Appalachian State University on a whim in 2002 with the first song she ever wrote and won first place, she never expected to one day be performing with artists she used to listen to on her iPod, such as Melissa Ferrick (Out/Loud 2009) and the Indigo Girls and Dar Williams (Folkfest St. Pete in 2010). Matthews has shared stages with Graham Nash, Chris Pureka and Liz Longley, as well as several regional artists such as Owen Danoff, Summer Osborne, and Eliot Bronson.

Matthews’ first studio album, Backroads and Driveways was produced in 2011 by Karen Kane who engineered Tracy Chapman’s first EP. After hearing Crys play at a festival, Kane immediately wanted to collaborate with her. The following year Matthews released her sophomore album A Lesson Learned and an EP entitled The Izzle Ballads. In 2014 Matthews released her fourth studio album Come What May. A departure both musically and lyrically from her earlier works, Come What May bridges the gap between contemporary folk with simple storytelling filled with candor, emotion and history. Then in August 2015, Matthews released a second EP called The Izzle Ballads, vol. II. Just as in the first installment, Matthews sings about hope, love, perseverance and justice with an ease and candor that one might expect from a southeastern North Carolina native whose mother happens to be a preacher.

A prolific lyricist and composer, Matthews has found inspiration in her surroundings; from driving through the Blue Ridge Mountains to the compelling and heart-breaking love story of Richard and Mildred Loving. Thoughtful, realistic and emotional, Matthews’ songs speak to the voice of our generation and remind us why music indeed soothes the soul.