Briana Marela

Briana Marela initially constructed experimental soundscapes by fusing experimental rock, avant-garde chamber music, indie electronic, and arty folk, with her early compositions probing rhythm, dynamics, and form alongside timbre and tone before she gravitated toward ethereal ambient pop. Born in Seattle, she started writing music while in middle school and later studied guitar as a teenager to provide an expressive channel for her ideas. During her college years in Olympia, Washington, she completed music technology coursework that prompted hands-on work with delay, looping, and programming. In mid-2010 she independently produced and issued the avant-garde, largely instrumental album Water Ocean Lake. Spring 2012 brought Speak from Your Heart, a more song-oriented effort co-produced with Bob Schwenkler. Her first release for Jagjaguwar, the squarely ambient pop album All Around Us, was tracked in Reykjavik with producer Alex Somers (Jónsi, Sigur Rós) and appeared in August 2015. On 2017’s Call It Love she enlisted co-producers Ryan Heyner and Juan Pieczanski of synth pop group Small Black to shape a bolder, more percussive aesthetic.