Artist Juniper Tar

CJ Foeckler

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Juniper Tar

Milwaukee band Juniper Tar established itself as one of the city’s finest purveyors of gentle folk-rock with 2008’s To The Trees, a spaced-out pastoral record designed for late summer nights spent polishing off whiskey bottles on the back porch. 2010’s The Howl Street EP—named after Shane Hochstetler’s eternally busy Bay View studio, Howl Street Recordings, where the record was made—was similarly lovely, particularly the slowly unfolding lead-off track, “Interstates.” Live and on record (not to mention in the 2011 tour doc Points Of Interest), Juniper Tar is a uniquely Midwestern band, and practically bleeds Milwaukee pride. A new album, Since Before, is expected to drop sometime this year; if early snippets are any indication, it promises to take the group’s hushed and yearning sound in a thrilling new direction.

Updated 02/07/2012