Briana Marela

Crafting experimental soundscapes that bridged experimental rock, avant-garde chamber music, indie electronic, and arty folk, Briana Marela's early song compositions explored rhythm, dynamics, and form in addition to timbre and tone before she settled into an ethereal ambient pop. Seattle-born Marela began writing music in middle school, and took guitar lessons as a teen to give her music an outlet. After taking music technology classes while at college in Olympia, Washington, she began to experiment with delay, looping, and programming. She self-produced and self-released the avant-garde, mostly instrumental full-length album Water Ocean Lake in mid-2010 and the more song-oriented, Bob Schwenkler co-produced Speak from Your Heart in spring 2012. Her squarely ambient pop label debut, All Around Us, was recorded in Reykjavik with producer Alex Somers (Jónsi, Sigur Rós) and arrived on Jagjaguwar in August 2015. She worked with co-producers Ryan Heyner and Juan Pieczanski from synth pop group Small Black to finesse a bolder, more percussive sound on 2017's Call It Love. ~ Marcy Donelson, Rovi