Humbird with Erin Cole-Baker

With deep roots in the midwest heartland, Humbird also travels like a bramble, fusing experimental folk and environmental Americana genres in a mosaic of theaters, clubs, gardens, festivals, barns, caves, and other strange locations. Siri Undlin, the songwriter behind the moniker, forges an explorative embodiment of the narrative folk song and balladry tradition for these modern times, inviting a whole host of collaborators and listeners to add and expand the music.

Recently, Humbird shared Help Me Willie Nelson! - a single about the ways we’re pushed and pulled in a chaotic world. A lighthearted romp of a song that nods to a classic Americana sound of summertime, open roads, and the legend himself. This release also marks Undlin's first release on Nettwerk.

Still Life (2021), Humbird’s sophomore record, focuses on small domestic moments in the context of global events. In particular, the record details the lived experiences within Siri’s neighborhood in South Minneapolis during the wake of George Floyd’s murder by a city police officer. m that cultivates soundscapes and intentional lyrics that tell braided stories. It reckons with anger, grief, and white supremacy while carving out reflective, fertile space to process current events.

Humbird’s debut full-length album, Pharmakon (2019) a careful look at that which can both cure and wound us: love, ambition, winter, and sea shells, to name a few lyrical topics. The record received critical acclaim from tastemakers such as Folk Alley and 89.3 The Current and amassed significant streams online. Not long after the album's release, Humbird, along with so many fellow traveling musicians, were grounded by the global pandemic. Responding to the times, Humbird and friends took to backyard campfires, forests, and planetariums (in over 100 pop-up locations) to perform acoustic ballads and fairytales with original improvised scores for micro audiences, adapting to the moment and crisis at hand.

Since returning to the road, Undlin and her bandmates have toured full-time across the US, UK and Ireland. With plenty of new music on the horizon, Humbird continues to share reflections that combine and subvert genres and perspectives via recordings, performances, zines, stories, and more.

Erin Cole-Baker was born in the USA and raised in the beach-filled rural Northland of New Zealand. Her timeless, stunning songcraft is guided by her gorgeous voice, reminiscent of greats such as Patty Griffin, early Joni Mitchell, and Emmy Lou Harris.

Cole-Baker was enticed to the American West and the lure of folk festivals and music scene in the USA in her early 20’s. She and her husband found their way to Sisters Folk Festival, and on a whim decided to settle in Bend. Cole-Baker established herself as “one of the more constant and compelling voices on the Central Oregon music scene” (GO! Magazine) and called Oregon home for six years in which she won over the local scene as one half of folk duo The Erins. The Erins parted ways as Cole-Baker returned home to New Zealand to raise a family and Erin Zurflu to pursue study in medicine.

Erins most recent Full length album “Till the Feelings Right” was recorded over a few long weekends in 2018 with a band of friends live to tape at Anzac Rd Studios in Whangarei New Zealand - “a hothouse flower of a recording” (NZ Musician Magazine) of “well-crafted songs” (Off the Tracks). Cole-Baker was funded by Outward Sound (NZ) to attend the International Folk Alliance Conference in Kansas City, toured through California, Oregon and Washington and was the Breedlove artist for Sisters Folk Festival in 2018.

In 2019 Erin and her family moved to the USA, bought an RV and toured the Northwest playing music at Festivals, venues and house concerts to connect with a larger community, before settling back in Bend at the start of 2020.

Over the course of her career Erin released The Year of Hello and Goodbye (2007) as The Erins, four solo albums (Songs for Roy 2005, Talon and Spur 2009, Big Sky 2011 and Till the Feelings Right in 2018), and more recently three self produced singles born out of gathering gear and learning to record at home during the pandemic Late Summer 2021, I didn’t want to take your things (2022) and The Darkest (2022) which weaves a gorgeous bed of vocal harmony, warm electric guitar and synth, which complete her delicate acoustic fingerpicking.

Erin Cole-Baker and Zurflu are playing again as The Erins, with Cole-Bakers new songs featuring reverby-jazzmaster guitar paired with Erin Zurflu's sister-like harmonies, acoustic guitar, violin and bass making for a close-your-eyes dreamsound & also plays in Joel Chadds band.