The Last Bison w/ Ben Schrag & The Cautionaries

In 2012 The Last Bison seemingly rose from the marshes of southeastern Virginia to captivate the national music scene with a rare blend of music that NPR dubbed, “Classical influenced southern folk rock.” Commenting on the band’s self-released debut album, Quill, a blogger for the popular music sharing site NoiseTrade remarked: “(The Last) Bison has already crafted a sound that is threaded with their own singular strands of creativity. Songs unfurl in textured, poetic waves that are based far more in inspiration than imitation.”  WXPN of Philadelphia noted The Last Bison “has subsequently swept the musical scene with its complex arrangements, refined lyrics and vocal harmonies.”

Having drawn comparisons in the past to indie superstars the likes of Mumford & Sons, The Decemberists, and Fleet Foxes, their VA album project harvested a more dynamic, and anthemic sound from the soil of their folk roots. The addition of electric bass and keyboards to their extensive collection of acoustic instruments gave them a more dynamic, driving sound.  After a performance at Norfolk, Virginia’s Harborfest, the The Daily Press commented on the new musical direction saying, “The result is a more rocking sound, though the band still remains true to its folkie roots.”

Following their first independent release, Quill, in 2011, The Last Bison was signed to Universal Republic Records and created the Inheritance album in 2013.  The 2014 VA album found The Last Bison returning to their independent roots, having self-produced the project in collaboration with Media House Music.

To capture the  sounds on The Last Bison’s 2014 VA (pronounced Virginia,) the band spent many days and nights in an old A-frame cabin.  The cabin, called “the Wigwam” sits on a summer camp on the edge of the Great Dismal Swamp near the band’s home in Chesapeake, Virginia.  The pine-lined walls and high-lofted beams became home to a temporary studio where front man Ben Hardesty says, “We had freedom to explore and create without the time constraints we lived under on previous projects.”  Out of this rustic cabin emerged a collection of music with booming organic drums and energy beyond anything on their previous work.

With their most recent work SÜDA, The Last Bison have stampeded down from the mountaintop and landed in the wild lands, where they inhabit world rhythms, ambient oases and crystalline stone-cathedrals with music that echoes out into the night. After 2014 sessions polishing their more pastoral arrangements into larger visions for the LP VA and EP Dorado, The Last Bison have gone through a lineup change and pushed even further into a grander sonic landscape that they’ve felt their arrangements always deserved. SÜDA was tracked at COLLECTOR studios in Norfolk, VA in the summer of 2016 with new faces on board and a new goal in mind: to expand their songs into creations that more closely matched the sounds that they hear in their own heads every day.

Ames' own Ben Schrag & The Cautionaries will support the show.  

www.sub.iastate.edu/mshop | www.thelastbison.com 

TICKETING NOTES: All sales are final | A 3% processing fee is applied to online purchases | All tickets are subject to a non-refundable $2 MidwesTIX service fee | Each and every ISU student ticket will require a valid, unique ISU student ID at the door to avoid an upcharge to the public price.