This Friday, Isadora Eden headlines Denver’s Hi-Dive stage to test out some new material as part of a “special audiovisual performance” that is the culmination of her most recent work. With drummer and cowriter Sumner Erhard, Eden is prepping for the impending release of a new LP, much of which will be debuted live at the August 30th show. Rather than debut previously recorded and ready-to-release music, the idea behind debuting in-the-works and to-be-recorded music to test out its viability and sustainability is both endearing and inventive, leaving the artist with comfortable room for interpretation.
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Friday evening’s performance will feature Eden and Erhard’s “fuzz folk,” a genre they invented in an attempt to find a name to encompass the multiple genres their music straddles. Eden said, “I think it’s a classic band problem to have a hard time picking one genre to describe yourself,” and that’s where “fuzz folk” originated. In her words, it’s “a mix of shoegaze and indie rock, if you took a folk song and turned it into a shoegaze song.”
While still in tandem with their original sound, Eden said, the upcoming second LP can be expected to be more upbeat than some of their past work. Eden credits a confidence boost in her and her band’s skills as musicians and songwriters and in writing together, which she feels has granted them permission to experiment and try different things. Not only more upbeat, but this album “is a little weirder,” with Erhard adding that “it feels like a fresh perspective on this sound that we’ve been cultivating over the past couple of years.” Overall, Eden sees this latest music as “the best that we’ve worked on, which is a cool feeling to have.”
During this waiting period for the LP’s release, which was recorded with producer and engineer Corey Coffman, Friday night’s show is expected to be quite extraordinary. To accompany and complement their more upbeat, weird, and cool new “fuzz folk,” Eden and Erhard will have audiovisual artist Colin Hill present live visuals throughout the show. “We don’t headline super frequently,” Eden said, and “when we do, we put a lot of effort into making it a special show.” The best way to describe Hill’s work during the performance is that he’ll be “DJing visuals, reacting to the music,” which gives them a more organic and dynamic feel.
Following Friday’s show, Eden and Erhard will be finalizing the sophomore LP and planning to record a two-song live set as well. “We’re really excited about having a recorded version of the live stuff as it currently is,” said Eden. They’ve also got a house show in Fort Collins coming up, which has felt “very special and affirming” to them and their music, which the local music scene tends to do. With the support of that scene backing them up, Eden and Erhard hope to get a tour going as soon as it’s feasible and are looking forward to creating some music videos for the new songs.