Shana Cleveland works as a singer, songwriter, guitarist, and visual artist, dividing her efforts between the indie surf band La Luz and the more restrained folk material issued under her own name. Vintage surf and instrumental rock shape the sound of her La Luz recordings, whereas her independent projects draw on a different palette. Her acoustic guitar work echoes the fusion of “American Primitive” traditionalism and adventurous melodic invention found in the music of John Fahey and Robbie Basho; on the 2015 release Oh Man, Cover the Ground, credited to Shana Cleveland & the Sandcastles, and on the 2023 album Manzanita, her measured yet decisive picking is set against understated, responsive instrumental support.
Born in Kalamazoo, Michigan, Cleveland moved to Seattle and started the Curious Mystery in 2005. Over the following years the group toured extensively and issued several albums on K Records, during which time Cleveland refined the intricate, John Fahey-inspired fingerpicking technique she later used in her solo recordings. The Curious Mystery wound down just as she launched La Luz in 2012, yet she had already begun leading the Sandcastles as a vehicle for her folk-leaning songs. Before La Luz existed she tracked Oh Man, Cover the Ground in 2011 with the Sandcastles; the album first appeared as a limited cassette and was later reissued in 2015 by Seattle’s Suicide Squeeze Records. Although La Luz demanded much of her attention, Cleveland kept developing her solo work, releasing Night of the Worm Moon in 2019 on the Hardly Art label, which is distributed by Sub Pop. In 2023 she delivered her third solo album, Manzanita, favoring gentler textures and subtle orchestral pop arrangements over the garage-surf energy of La Luz.
Cleveland also maintains a visual art practice; her work has appeared in Columbia Poetry Review, Vice, and Maggot Brain, and she created the set of 37 trading cards titled “Obscure Giants of Acoustic Guitar” for the folk label Tompkins Square.
