[Cover photo credit to Jamie Gemmiti]

In the summer of 2023, New Hampshire-based Heather Pierson and her trio, with Shawn Nadeau on bass and Craig Bryan on drums, recorded together for two days at Acadia Recording Company in Portland, Maine.  They went in with a handful Pierson’s original songs that they’d been honing in their post-pandemic live shows and they recorded everything live, with minimal overdubs.

Heather Pierson then shelved the songs to listen to them fresh later, and continued to tour. In early 2024, she listened to those songs with fresh ears and added one more track to create Back To The Light.

Pierson has a number of creative projects since in 2021, she reunited with friend Leah Boyd (Garajh Mahal/Lightsisters/Shambhala) to form a new duo, Peaceful Means, creating and sharing original and cover songs “nurturing nonviolent consciousness.”  Peaceful Means began performing throughout northern New England in 2022 and are currently working on their first studio recordings.  In late 2023, they ran a successful Kickstarter campaign to fund their 9-song debut album, which was released on April 5, 2024.

2022 is also saw the re-emergence of a nearly decade-long idea of Pierson’s, a group called The Potboilers, an “immersive, collaborative, spontaneous, multi-genre musical experience” whose motto is: “Groove plus melody equals joy.” 

In over twenty years on her own record label, Vessel Recordings, Pierson has released fifteen albums and several singles of original music.  Back To The Light is her forthcoming 16th solo album.