Chris Pureka & Laura Gibson

Harlow's and SBL Entertainment Present

CHRIS PUREKA & LAURA GIBSON

Doors: 6:00pm / Show: 7:00pm

$15.00

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.

LAURA GIBSON:

Laura Gibson is an internationally acclaimed multi-instrumentalist, singer-songwriter and producer, born and raised in the small Oregon logging town of Coquille. Her most recent album Goners (Barsuk/City Slang) is a meditation on grief and empathy which The Fader described as, "so incessantly beautiful that one cannot help but want to gently crack it open to get to its beating core.” The New York Times summarized its themes: “longing and instinct, and whether they can ever converge.”

Both literary and raw, with a love of traditional folk music and a bent toward experimentation, Gibson has toured four continents and had the distinct honor of performing the very first NPR Tiny Desk Concert. Between albums, Gibson earned an MFA in fiction writing from Hunter College, completing her thesis in the back of a tour van. She's been awarded residencies at Yaddo, Ucross, and AIRIE Everglades; is the recipient of a Hertog fellowship and a RACC Grant; and remains a frequent collaborator with both major arts organizations and her indie rock peers.