Alberta Cross

Formed in London during 2005, the country-rock-infused indie outfit Alberta Cross originated with Swedish songwriter Petter Eriksson Stakee, raised in Uppsala and accustomed from childhood to traveling alongside his own singer/songwriter father, alongside fellow songwriter and bassist Terry Wolfers. The pair soon added organist John Alexander Ericson and drummer Seb Sternberg, issuing the self-produced EP The Thief & the Heartbreaker on the U.K. imprint Fiction in May 2007. After Wolfers and Stakee relocated to the United States and established themselves in New York City, Ericson and Sternberg departed; keys player Alec Higgins, drummer Austin Beede, and guitarist Sam Kearney stepped in. That configuration delivered the Mike McCarthy-produced debut album Broken Side of Time in 2009 via ATO in the U.S. and Ark Recordings/PIAS across the U.K. and Europe, while the limited-edition The Rolling Thunder EP appeared exclusively on the road and in independent shops two years later.

Stakee’s project, built around a shifting cast of supporting musicians, draws foundational inspiration from the Band and Neil Young. The brighter sophomore effort Songs of Patience emerged on ATO/Ark/PIAS in 2012. The next year Wolfers exited, leaving Stakee to proceed with informal collaborators; after solo acoustic residencies in Williamsburg and the East Village during mid-2014, he convened a new ensemble at the converted church Dreamland Recording in upstate New York. Issued in October 2015 on Dine Alone Records, the resulting self-titled album appeared as a more intimate singer/songwriter statement, with only Stakee pictured on the cover. North American, U.K., and European dates followed in 2016, after which Stakee settled temporarily in Berlin.

By 2019 the act had issued preliminary tracks from its next project independently; the fuller, pop-tinged What Are We Frightened Of? arrived in June 2020, produced and co-written by Luke Potashnick of the Temperance Movement. Now back in London, Alberta Cross aligned with Dark Matter/AMK (distributed through Kartel Music Group) for the March 2023 release of the more anxious Sinking Ships, again uniting Stakee and Potashnick. Cut at the Wool Hall studio in Frome, Somerset, the album incorporated a reading of Sharon Van Etten’s “Every Time the Sun Comes Up” and expanded the group’s blend of pop, folk, and psychedelic elements beyond its earlier work.