The State Room | A Live Music Venue | Salt Lake City, Utah

with special guest Alex Wong

Three years after stepping away from a full-time music career to attend graduate school, Vienna returns to the studio with a new sound, a new producer, and a new approach to songwriting and recording. What's emerging from that process is her most uptempo, pop-influenced album yet—and full of surprises, even to its creators.

"I have all these songs in various stages of completion," Vienna explains. "Some are just fragments of melody set to a beat I recorded on my phone. Some are a verse and chorus with no lyrics. I've never been a prolific writer, and then I got really involved in school, so my songwriting pace just went glacial," she says with a laugh. "It's sort of terrifying to have so little figured out as we start recording, but it also opens up a lot of possibilities."

At the same time, she's been thinking more like a producer from the outset, often sketching out percussion and vocal arrangements in demo recordings. "This album began with restlessness," Vienna says. "I wanted the songs to have movement; I wanted to be on my feet. So I started writing more on guitar while walking around the house. I'd make rhythmic patterns on the looper and dance around to them. That's probably part of why these songs are taking so long to find their shape. Nothing about this is familiar."

Doors 8 pm  | Show 9 pm