Black Willow

Loma started by accident, between Emily Cross, the musician and recording engineer Dan Duszynski, and Shearwater's Jonathan Meiburg. A punishing tour had ended with a set on a packed beach at Sub Pop's SPF 30 festival, where Cross leapt into the crowd and then into the sea while the band played on from the stage. It felt like a peak and also like an ending. Afterwards Cross went to rural Mexico to make visual art and a solo record, and Meiburg started a new Shearwater album. A few months later the three reconvened at Duszynski's house in rural Texas and began the songs that became Don't Shy Away. Loma write by consensus. Cross always sings, but the three of them trade instruments freely, and Meiburg likens the process to working a ouija board, the songs revealing themselves slowly; nobody wears the crown, he says, so they have to trust each other, and they end up somewhere none of them would have reached alone. The album that came out of it has a light touch over heavy subjects, solitude and impermanence and finding light in deep darkness. Guests fill out the record, among them touring members Emily Lee on piano and violin and Matt Schuessler on bass, and Jenn Wasner of Flock of Dimes and Wye Oak.