Tess Liautaud and Jessie Rose Shanks weave a sound as old as the hills, a little bit sage, a touch playful and full to the brim with heart.

The music of Franco-American singer-songwriter Tess Liautaud cannot be easily defined. It hangs in the balance of her voice, warm like honey; it carries a depth of raw emotion, delivered with melodic grace and old-time soul.

Having traversed the countryside for the last fifteen or so years in New Zealand’s hardest working band The Eastern, Jessie Shanks is a renowned guitar picking, banjo frailing, foot stomper with a sweet southern voice.

Together they have cultivated their own unique approach to roots music, writing and performing folk ballads and country twangers steeped in time and place. Always searching, sometimes going down deep, brushing with melancholy and finding harmony in the spaces between.