Taylor Ashton @ littlefield ft. Kaia Kater at littlefield – Brooklyn, NY

DOORS 7PM | OPENER 8PM

TAYLOR ASHTON

Taylor Ashton is a shape-shifting songwriter with the heart of a novelist and the timing of a stand-up comic. Whether it’s just his warm baritone over solo clawhammer banjo or his agile falsetto soaring over an electric, horn-laced six-piece band, his live shows unfold like a play: vulnerable, funny, and slyly profound. Laughter often gives way to a hush. Ashton’s sound evokes the intimacy of Nick Drake, the soul of Bill Withers, the tender playfulness of Harry Nilsson, and the searching spirit of Joni Mitchell. Like his heroes, he thrives in the liminal space where heart-on-sleeve meets tongue-in-cheek, with a groovy brand of folk-rock in which surprising pairings of familiar ingredients add up to a greater sum that is easier to love than to define.

Originally from Vancouver BC, Ashton started touring in his teens as frontman of the band Fish & Bird, who became Canadian folk festival favorites over four albums. Eventually, he relocated to Brooklyn to launch his solo career. His vibrant debut The Romantic (2020) was followed by the stark Stranger to the Feeling (2023). The latter was recorded on a New York-to-LA road trip, mostly in the living rooms of friends across the States who became featured guests on the album, including members of Vulfpeck and Big Thief. Over the years, he’s toured and recorded with artists like Aoife O’Donovan, The Wood Brothers, Madison Cunningham, Courtney Hartman, and his wife Rachael Price (of Lake Street Dive). Taylor Ashton’s original music has been featured everywhere from the Tonight Show to the New York Times, and he has established himself as a staple of Brooklyn’s quirky folk scene.

2026 heralds the arrival of a new LP, produced and largely co-written by Benjamin Lazar Davis (Cuddle Magic, Okkervil River, Maya Hawke). The new music marks a bold evolution in both sound and subject matter. Davis’ influence brings flavors of jagged experimental pop and classical harmony to these new songs: a set of atmospheric short stories about fidelity, friendship, destiny, and self-deception. Crystalline photographic details mingle with stark confessions and cosmic longing. Whether his focus is trained on a nebula of cream in a diner coffee cup, a misheard piece of advice, or the infinite quest to stop fooling oneself, Ashton finds the mythic in the mundane and the sacred in a sideways glance.

“…packs a punch in today’s mainstream”
-Rolling Stone

“I love his new record beyond words”
-Basic Folk

KAIA KATER

2025 JUNOS Contemporary Roots Album of the Year Winner
2025 International Folk Music Awards Nominated

Montreal-born Grenadian-Canadian Kaia’s jazz-fueled voice and deft songcraft have garnered acclaim from NPR’s Tiny Desk, The Guardian, Rolling Stone and No Depression. Through her artful banjo playing and lush songwriting, Kaia draws on influences rooted in Quebec, the Caribbean, and Appalachia, all of which reflect the diversity of her background; her ties to the Canadian folk music scene; her college years spent soaking up Appalachian music in West Virginia, her father’s experience growing up in Grenada, and her recent work in film composition.

Kaia Kater’s new JUNO Award-winning album, Strange Medicine (Free Dirt Records/ acrönym in Canada) was created during a period of deep self-reflection and reinvention. Taking the helm as co-producer, alongside Joe Grass (Elisapie, Barr Brothers), the album finds Kater expanding her creative scope with cinematic arrangements, and working with guest artists such as Taj Mahal, Allison Russell and Aoife O’Donovan. The album celebrates the power of women and oppressed people throughout history, while also sharing meditations on her own life.

Kaia released her first EP Old Soul (2013) when she was just out of high school. Since then, she’s gone on to release several albums, Sorrow Bound (2015), Nine Pin (2016) and Grenades (2018) and Strange Medicine (May 2024). For the JUNO-nominated and Polaris Music Prize long-listed Grenades, Kaia leaned into a wide array of sounds and styles in order to convey a broad range of emotions and topics, most notably her Caribbean ancestry and her father’s experience as a refugee in Canada.

In 2020, Kaia took part in the Slaight Music Residency at the Canadian Film Center, leading her to write original music for The Porter (BET+ 2022), for which she garnered a Canadian Screen Award. She also wrote and performed music for the new film, My Dead Friend Zoe (March 2024).

“…plaintive, mesmerizing…writes and performs with the skill of a folk-circuit veteran…”
-Rolling Stone

“You want some authenticity in your folk music or bluegrass – I give you Kaia Kater.” -No Depression

“A star in the making…”
-Folk Alley