Loud Flowers

Loud Flowers' 3-song Litho EP was released in April 2026 in tandem with the 3-song Earwig EP. All six songs were initially meant to go on a full-length album that would be recorded at Seattle's Earwig Studio with renowned engineer and studio owner Don Farwell at the board. But by the time the band was ready to start recording, Farwell was in the middle of moving his operation to Tacoma and building a new Earwig Studio from scratch to his own very exacting specifications. Fortunately for us, during this transition Don was also doing a lot of sessions at Pearl Jam guitarist Stone 
Gossard's legendary Studio Litho and suggested we start recording there.  It proved to be a great creative atmosphere--the perfect combination of a funky-informal vibe and technical sophistication.  

Loud Flowers' 3-song Earwig  EP was released in April 2026 in tandem with the 3-song Litho  EP. As mentioned in the writeup about the Litho EP (above),  the six songs that comprise these two EPs were initially meant to be recorded at Earwig Studio--where we had made our debut album--and be on a single album.  But since Earwig owner and engineer Don Farwell was in the process of moving from Seattle to Tacoma we recorded the first three songs at Pearl Jam guitarist Stone Gossard's Studio Litho. Once the new Earwig Studio up and running we moved operations to Tacoma. By the time recording was completed in early 2026 we had three songs from the Litho sessions and three from the Earwig sessions. The Litho recordings were more lush and layered; the Earwig recordings were comparatively stripped down and spacious. The contrast wasn't planned; things just shook out that way. If the Litho songs were an exercise in adding musical elements (including recording with several guest players), the Earwig songs were more about creative subtraction, with everything being played by the three core members of the band. We recorded a number of overdubs (piano, various guitar parts, more vocal harmonies, etc.)  but the  songs recorded at Earwig just seemed to demand less not more. In a game of musical Jenga we ended up wiping a number of otherwise perfectly good overdubs in order to preserve the raw, live feel of the basic tracks.  While the two EPs represent a single, yearlong song cycle ('24-'25, more or less), they're kind of like siblings: closely related but with their own distinct personalities.

Looking to branch out after writing and recording three albums with Seattle band The Civilians between 2019 and 2022, singer/songwriter Chris Livesay started this project intending to make a solo album. But as the recording sessions gathered steam with the help of a loose affiliation of Seattle musicians/friends playing under the umbrella of Loud Flowers, the project gradually morphed into a new band, with Livesay, drummer Chuck Wood, and bassist Tommy Simpson forming the initial nucleus of the group and guitarist Peter Marshall joining in 2026.