A relentless road warrior and masterful wordsmith, Ryan Montbleau has spent the better part of thirty years cultivating a devoted audience on the strength of his ecstatic live shows and exhilarating sonic versatility. He’s collaborated with artists as diverse as Trombone Shorty, Galactic, Steel Pulse, Tall Heights, Martin Sexton, Anders Osborne, and George Porter, Jr; shared bills with the likes of Tedeschi Trucks Band, Ani DiFranco, Todd Snider, The Wood Brothers, Rodrigo y Gabriela, and Mavis Staples; and racked up more than 150 million streams on Spotify alone. NPR’s Mountain Stage compared his “eloquent, soulful songwriting” to Bill Withers and James Taylor, while Relix celebrated his “poetic Americana,” and The Boston Herald raved that “he’s made a career of confident, danceable positivity.”

Montbleau’s freewheeling new album finds him exploring the full spectrum of his influences like never before, touching on folk, rock, funk, soul, hip-hop, and reggae, all with a preternatural ease that belies the intensely focused craftsmanship behind it. The songs are sprawling and unpredictable, grappling with a modern world perpetually teetering on the edge of chaos, but the performances are relentlessly optimistic, insisting on hope and joy in the face of it all. The result is Montbleau’s most vulnerable and cathartic work yet, an album that acknowledges the inevitability of doubt and pain while at the same time celebrating our limitless capacity for growth and love.

Hailing from the mountains of North Carolina, Brooks Forsyth is a musician of Appalachia and beyond. He began busking on street corners in his hometown of Boone, NC and has since become a Nashville recording artist.  Encompassing a variety of sounds within Americana, he has a large repertoire of original songs, and a versatile guitar style consisting of both flatpicking and fingerpicking techniques.

Throughout the last seventeen years, Brooks has performed solo and with a variation of musical ensembles across the U.S.A. He has played alongside artists such as Doc Watson and Sierra Ferrell, and opened for Cristina Vane, Town Mountain, and Willi Carlisle.  He has also worked with producer Buzz Cason, and film director Nigel Dick. Additionally, Brooks was the lead songwriter, vocalist, and guitarist for the band The Major Sevens.

Brooks currently has six solo albums available: Swamp Street Tapes (2024), Black Zipper (2023), Live at Sunbanks (2022), So Much Beyond Us (2018), On The Lam And Lonesome (2016) and Back In Cackalacky (2015), and one album with The Major Sevens Goodbye Baby (2008).