Brian Wheat has some noble goals as a songwriter – to shed light upon the mechanisms that lead to human disconnect and the roots of detachment from our surroundings, while offering new possibilities for the growth of community. Lofty? Perhaps, but certainly within his clear-eyed grasp. With a warm, whispery voice, the color of softly aged photos from your grandmother's attic, and songs that float with a secular religion of home, forgotten industry, and the architecture of ghostly pasts, Wheat creates music that suspends the listener between modernity and bygone eras. He engages his audience with a gorgeous balance of the immediately tangible and a wonderfully elusive sense of the enduring.

On his debut eponymous EP, Wheat deftly handles the guitar, banjo, and harmonica duties. Bassist Peter Williams and drummer Mark Longolucco map out the peaks and valleys that lie within Wheat's gently weathered landscapes, magnifying his rare ability to bring a crowded room to an attentive silence. Together, they create music that is at once earthy, refined, organic, and melodic.

Brian Wheat has shared the stage with everything from pop-punk bands to anti-folk solo performers, but each audience has been receptive to his music and bearded, sweater-clad charms.