Much like community, music nourishes us mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. It also invites us to come together under the same roof and in a shared moment. In similar fashion, John Craigie rallies a closeness around music anchored by his expressive and stirring songcraft, emotionally charged vocals, lively soundscapes, and uncontainable spirit. The Portland, OR-based singer, songwriter, and producer invites everyone into this space on his 2024 full-length album, Pagan Church. Following tens of millions of streams, sold out shows everywhere, and praise from Rolling Stone and more, he continues to captivate.

“The music is always evolving and devolving with each new record,” he observes. “With my last album Mermaid Salt, I really wanted to explore the sound of isolation and solitude as everyone was heading inside. With this record, I wanted to record the sound of everyone coming back out.”

In order to capture that, he didn’t go about it alone…

Instead, he joined forces with some local friends. At the time, TK & The Holy Know-Nothings booked a slew of outdoor gigs in Portland and they invited Craigie to sit in for a handful of shows. The musicians instinctively identified an unspoken, yet seamless chemistry with each other. Joined by three of the five members, Craigie cut “Laurie Rolled Me a J” and kickstarted the process. With the full band in tow, they hunkered down in an old schoolhouse TK & The Holy Know-Nothings had converted into a de facto headquarters and studio, and recorded the eleven tracks on Pagan Church.

The first Blind Pilot album in eight years, In the Shadow of the Holy Mountain emerged from a period of artistic crisis and the radical transformation of their creative ecosystem. “I went through a few years where I wasn’t able to write—I tried therapy, I read books on writer’s block, I went on writing trips, but nothing was helping,” says Israel Nebeker, frontman for the Oregon-bred band. After stepping back and reimagining his songwriting approach, Nebeker challenged himself to write an entire album in a month, then brought those songs to his bandmates with a newfound sense of receptivity. “I told myself that whatever songs came through in that month would be for the love of the band and music we make together,” says Nebeker. “Instead of being controlling in the studio, I wanted to let the songs live and breathe with the band as an entity. By the time we finished, it was the most joy we’d ever had in making an album together.”

Produced by Josh Kaufman (The Hold Steady, David Wax Museum), In the Shadow of the Holy Mountain brings a potent new energy to the elegantly composed folk/indie-rock of past LPs like 2016’s And Then Like Lions. In a profound step forward for the band—whose lineup also includes drummer/co-founder Ryan Dobrowski, bassist Luke Ydstie, and multi-instrumentalist Kati Claborn—Blind Pilot’s fourth full-length unfolds with an exquisite fluidity, fully harnessing the undeniable chemistry. “In the past we’ve always been very serious and intentional about the process, but Josh often encouraged us to throw away our preconceived notions of what the songs were supposed to be,” says Nebeker. “So much of the album came from all of us playing live together, listening to each other and trusting our instincts, and really getting to the core of the song,” Dobrowski adds. The result: the most revelatory expression yet of Blind Pilot’s palpable reverence for music as a connective force.

While Blind Pilot intends to tour principally as a quartet in support of the record, the album includes contributions from longtime trumpeter/keyboardist Dave Jorgensen and vibraphonist Ian Krist. In bringing the album to life, the band worked with a rich palette of instrumentation, handling each track with equal parts extraordinary care and unbridled spontaneity. For both Dobrowski and Nebeker—who formed an early iteration of the band as college students in the mid-aughts—those moments of ineffably closeness serve as the lifeblood of Blind Pilot. “For me making this album felt like celebrating being together and still feeling that deep connection that’s been a throughline for our entire adult lives,” Dobrowski says. “One of my very favorite things about music is the way it not only connects us as bandmates, but allows us to connect to an audience—and then within that audience, people end up connecting with each other. It’s this powerful thing that’s unlike anything else, and in a way it’s kind of like magic.”