Austin-based duo Deer Fellow serves up cozy indie folk-pop with “comforting yet bold musicality.” Matt Salois (vocals, electric guitar, looping, percussion) and Alyssa Kelly (vocals, violin, keys) have built a cross-genre sound that “stirs hearts with each carefully crafted note.”

“It’s hard to tell where the duo behind Deer Fellow ends and the other begins. Matt and Alyssa’s voices, like instruments, interchange, blend, rise and fall in ways that few duos can achieve. If listeners are lucky enough to catch a live show, they’d be forgiven for mistaking the pair for a full band upon first note. Matt’s guitar looping techniques, skillful chord progressions, and percussive elements, along with Alyssa’s synth backgrounds and bell-clear violin, produce a fulsome sound that is far from the typical duo most listeners have come to expect.” - EASTside Magazine

Often compared to the likes of Andrew Bird and Arlo Parks, the two's vocal harmonies and unique guitar-violin blends have landed them features in Earmilk, EASTside Magazine, and the Austin American-Statesman to name a few. As official SXSW performers and recent recipients of a Sonic Guild grant, Deer Fellow continues to grow their indie presence with support from House of Sync and Community Music. Matt and Alyssa — new Recording Academy Members — will release their first full-length album, Hues, in early 2026.

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Folk-Americana duo Of Sea and Stone began in January 2014 when Luke Dierker and Morgan Manson matched on Tinder. Immediately exhibiting a rare vocal chemistry, the two began writing and performing across their home state, Missouri. In 2016, the pair got married and began recording their first full-length studio album, self-titled Of Sea and Stone and released in December 2017. Ahead of the release, the duo packed up their home and hit the road with a full time tour schedule. They have shared the stage with several talented artists, including Judah and the Lion, Tyler Hilton, and Hush Kids. They have played the historic Blueberry Hill Duck Room in St. Louis, the notable Stubb's BBQ in Austin, The Mint in Los Angeles, 12 Today News in Phoenix, and Good Morning San Diego among many other venues. Their current tour dates can be found on their website at www.ofseaandstone.com/tour
 
Of Sea and Stone is known for their intimate lyrics, polished vocal harmonies, and captivating live show. Their 2019 single I Love You, Goodbye, and its accompanying music video, premiered on Nashville’s The Boot and is a sterling example of this couple’s heartbreaking vocals and haunting lyrical exchange. Their recent single Ordinary Things is the first release in a series of singles that share the story of a couple, the beauties of life and the pitfalls of their young relationship growing old. “There’s an atmospheric energy, a fiddle, and a quality lead vocal in the opening of this song... and once the vocal harmony enters the track, you’ll stop dead in your tracks,” says Greg Jones of Ear To The Ground Music. Of Sea and Stone never fails to transport you, making you feel their pain, joy, grief, and endless love throughout every performance.

When she recorded her last album, Hello Goodbye, Choffel was pregnant with her first daughter. Now a mother of two, she’s viewing life from the perspective of someone dealing with the ups and downs of parenthood, a long-term partnership and a post-pandemic world, not to mention her music career and radio DJ job.
She knew she needed to step away from her daily routine to get in the zone for this one. She also wanted to work with producer and longtime friend David Garza, who had just become a father and was staying close to home in L.A. She booked a flight; he called drummer Amy Wood and bassist Sebastian Steinberg, his co-producers with Fiona Apple on her Grammy-winning album, Fetch the Bolt Cutters.
On Bird By Bird, Choffel finds a noirish sweet spot and hits a new creative peak, segueing from tunes reflecting her love of ’80s pop to smoky jazz grooves on which she channels her inner Peggy Lee. “I believe she is truly the voice of Austin,” Garza gushed in a recent interview. “I hope that with this album, folks worldwide will get hip to her artistry.”
Choffel already had a reputation as a singer-songwriter and performer who glides among genres, eagerly exploring too many influences to fit neatly into any category. Bob Marley, Lauryn Hill and Mary J. Blige are significant inspirations, along with hooky, Madonna-ish dance-pop, Brazilian music, Stevie Wonder and her Mexican heritage. Performing professionally since she was 14, Choffel has won several national songwriting competitions and earned a 2009 Austin Music Award for Best Indie Band, prompting her to muse, “Maybe it actually means ‘independent of genre.’”
Bird by Bird highlights include “Summer in the City,” on which her breathy alto, fanned by Elias Haslinger’s slinky sax, builds from smoldering embers to a barn-burning flame, and “New York,” her “Fever”-pitched Big Apple love note. Evoking images of a chanteuse in elbow-length gloves working the crowd in a dimly lit jazz club (or on Broadway), it could become another classic ode to the city she inhabited for three years after her season three stint on The Voice (about which then-Rolling Stone writer Jessica Hopper said, “[she’s] one of the only singers on anyone's team ... who had the sort of voice you'd want to listen to for an entire album”).
She notes that her writing was more declarative in the past, stating, “This is how it is.” Now, she’s asking, “How Do I Make You Feel” and “What Do You Want from Me.” In the former, a quietly powerful song of longing almost belied by its sweet, sensual melody, she wants to know, “How do I make you feel what I want you to feel?”
“This album is so much about just wanting to connect,” she says. “It’s for people who yearn to be seen, held, heard, touched.”
 
But she also examines a particularly searing example of social injustice there’s simply no way to fix: the killing of Breonna Taylor, shot in her sleep by police who stormed the wrong apartment. “‘Fast Asleep (Breonna)’ is the most specific song I've ever written,” Choffel says. “It originally was a folk song, but Davíd encouraged me to explore more of a gospel/Nina Simone approach.” Moody and forceful, with percolating percussion and Adrian Quesada’s haunting guitar, it notes the irony that the future EMT, had she lived, might have responded to similar situations—and saved others’ lives.
That pain is tempered by hints of hope in “Little By Little” and especially “Bird by Bird”—which floats on a reggae vibe and tropicalia lilt. Choffel wrote it for her stepdaughter, who was struggling with depression and anxiety at the time. “Bird by bird and stone by stone,” she sings, “we can piece this world together / you don’t have to be alone.”
After cutting essential tracks in L.A., Choffel and Garza moved to the famed Sonic Ranch in West Texas—where she’d long dreamed of working, and he could perform his annual music festival gig nearby. Guest contributions (including violin by Warren Hood and Carrie Rodriguez) were recorded at Austin’s Cedar Creek Studio.
As she’s done in every stage of her career, Choffel continues to evolve. With Bird By Bird, she’s stretching her wings — and soaring to fascinating new heights.

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