Cotton Jones

In 2007 Maryland singer/songwriter Michael Nau launched Cotton Jones Basket Ride as an outlet once his well-known indie rock band Page France chose to pause. Although the project mined similar lightly psychedelic indie pop terrain, Nau and bandmate Whitney McGraw steered it toward a folkier, more experimental direction. On Quite Scientific Records the pair issued three EPs, beginning with a limited self-titled edition that sold out quickly and continuing with the art-book releases The Archery and The Ranger. After the name was shortened to Cotton Jones, the duo delivered Paranoid Cocoon on Suicide Squeeze in early 2009 and followed it a year later with Tall Hours in the Glowstream. The EP Sit Beside Your Vegetables appeared in 2011. During an extended recording break the pair married and started a family; Nau later assembled unfinished tracks from preceding years into completed songs for a solo album. The resulting record, Mowing, surfaced on Suicide Squeeze in early 2016 and conveyed a serene mood through nature-centered themes.