‘Family’ was released roughly a year ago. It’s a beau­ti­ful, restrained, quiet col­lec­tion of coun­try folk songs by Noah Gundersen of Seattle. He may never become one of the stars of the quasi-mainstream* like Bon Iver or The Antlers, because his songs don’t try to extend beyond the bound­aries of the genre; in fact, they fit inside quite comfortably. But that’s hardly a prob­lem when sim­plic­ity leads to sin­cer­ity, as is the case with Noah’s music and lyrics. His voice as well as all the instru­ments sound vir­tu­ally unal­tered by any arti­fi­cial knack, and they sound just right that way, telling sto­ries that matter.

* As opposed to the “real” main­stream con­sist­ing of fab­ri­cated prod­ucts like Rihanna or Justin Bieber.