Quilt

Shane Butler and Anna Fox Rochinski launched Quilt while enrolled at Boston’s School of the Museum of Fine Arts. Their psychedelic pop recalls the optimistic tone of the 1960s yet steers clear of overt stylistic borrowing. Butler’s upbringing in a spiritual community centered on musical chanting shaped his approach, while Rochinski honed her vocal-harmony instincts in classical choirs.

Alongside founding drummer Taylor McVay, the trio first circulated several cassettes before spending nearly a year with Apollo Sunshine’s Jesse Gallagher to complete the self-titled debut. Mexican Summer issued that album in late 2011. McVay soon left on amicable terms, and John Andrews—already familiar from opening every date of Quilt’s 2009 tour—stepped in. Road experience sharpened both their playing and songwriting.

In April 2013 the band recorded its second album with Woods’ Jarvis Taveniere, logging sixty hours each week inside the studio beneath Mexican Summer’s Brooklyn office. Adding bass, saxophone, and strings broadened the arrangements, and Held in Splendor appeared in January 2014. While touring behind the record, the musicians met Matt Arnett, creator of a traveling quilt exhibition whose imagery had already appeared in their artwork. The meeting led to rehearsal sessions for both old and new material inside a historic building Arnett owned near Atlanta’s Grant Park district.

Reconvening with Taveniere, Quilt delivered the tighter, more wistful Plaza in 2016, the first album to include bassist Keven Lareau.