Kyle Joe, who formerly toured as Chain of Lakes and later made the American songwriter competition rounds under his legal name, Kyle Rasche, won the Kerrville New Folk Songwriter competition in 2022 after a finalist nod the year prior.

2024 was a year of metamorphosis for Kyle Joe. After a full hard reboot of his life, both personal and professional, Kyle hunkered down in a humble recording studio in Ypsilanti, Michigan to create a new seven-song mid-length album with producer and arranger Chris DuPont. This long overdue partnership gave Kyle’s newest body of work a bold southeast-Michigan indie-folk treatment, along with guest vocals from rising stars Spencer LaJoye and Kylee Phillips.

Kylee Phillips is a Michigan-native vocalist and songwriter of deeply self-exposing pop music. Armed with an arresting, emotive, laser-focused voice, and an unrivaled ear for hooks and melodic contour, Phillips has garnered cult-like acclaim in the midwest and beyond since her explosive debut EP Long Time Coming.

In a world with no shortage of self-help sad-babe pop, Phillips weaves together a sensual, articulate, and unpretentiously therapeutic soundtrack for the lives we live but can’t always verbalize. She lends us an experiential wisdom that could only come from a massive heart that’s seen a lot of garbage and emerged transformed and immovable.