Orenda Fink

Orenda Fink first earned notice through her songwriting collaboration with Maria Taylor, yet she later established herself as an independent bandleader and solo performer whose work incorporated Haitian folk traditions alongside pop and rock elements. The two musicians began working together while enrolled at the Alabama School of Fine Arts, a connection that eventually produced the band Little Red Rocket. That project ended after issuing Who Did You Pay in 1997 and It's in the Sound in 2000, when the Geffen Records merger with Universal Music Group created instability, prompting both artists to relocate to Athens, Georgia, where they started the duo Azure Ray.

During the early push to establish Azure Ray, Fink and Taylor were also invited to join Now It's Overhead, an affiliation that introduced them to Saddle Creek Records and its co-founder Conor Oberst. Both Azure Ray and Now It's Overhead issued their debut albums in 2001, after which Taylor and Fink settled permanently in Omaha, Saddle Creek's base of operations, the following year. Burn and Shiver appeared as Azure Ray's second release before the end of 2002. Their third effort, Hold on Love, arrived in 2003 and earned indie recognition through the tracks "The Drinks We Drank Last Night" and "New Resolution," while Now It's Overhead put out another album amid extensive touring in 2004.

Beyond her work with Taylor, Fink contributed to projects by Moby, Bright Eyes, and Japancakes. Following Azure Ray's 2004 dissolution, she quickly pursued additional ventures, forming the Saddle Creek groups O+S and Art in Manila and issuing material with each. She also began a solo career, channeling experiences from journeys through India, Cambodia, and Haiti into the 2005 release Invisible Ones. Her next solo album, the spare Ask the Night, emerged in 2009. Later that same year she rejoined Taylor for an Azure Ray tour, and the pair delivered Drawing Down the Moon in fall 2010. Four years passed before her third solo record, Blue Dream, surfaced in 2014; the atmospheric collection drew from the loss of her dog and the enigmatic dreams that came afterward.