Laura Veirs

Born in Colorado Springs and based in Portland, Oregon, Laura Veirs has developed since the late 1990s a body of work situated between folk, baroque folk and alternative country, marked by spare arrangements, winding melodies and lyrics often informed by literary references. After a stint in the female punk band Rair Kx! during her student years, she released her debut album, Laura Veirs, in 1999 and refined her approach on The Triumphs and Travails of Orphan Mae (2001) and Troubled by the Fire (2003). Her career reached a new scale with Carbon Glacier (2004), Year of Meteors (2005) and Saltbreakers (2007), released during her Nonesuch period, before she returned to independence with July Flame (2010) on her own Raven Marching Band label. Laura Veirs has since alternated between personal albums and side projects, from Tumble Bee (2011), devoted to folk songs for children, to Warp & Weft (2013), The Lookout (2018), My Echo (2020), Found Light (2022) and Phone Orphans (2023). One of her most notable collaborations is the trio case/lang/veirs, formed with Neko Case and k.d. lang, which released the album case/lang/veirs in 2016. She has also contributed to film composition and in 2018 published the children’s book Libba, about Elizabeth Cotten.