West My Friend is the headliner at the final Cowichan Folk Guild coffeehouse before the summer break. (Submitted)

West My Friend is the headliner at the final Cowichan Folk Guild coffeehouse before the summer break. (Submitted)

Coffeehouse season finale features West My Friend

Quiet Hum is the third album from West My Friend

The final coffeehouse of the season is coming up June 9.

Then, according to Kelly Nakatsuka, artistic director for The Islands Folk Festival and the Cowichan Folk Guild, the CFG takes “the summer off from those shows to put on the festival and then recover from putting on the festival! Coffeehouse concerts resume in September on the second Saturday of the month as usual.”

For this windup evening, the Folk Guild is thrilled to close out the first half of the 2018 coffeehouse season with the award-winning Victoria band West My Friend, he said. “Playing as a trio these days, West My Friend presents some of the finest original folk being created on the Island right now.”

Their special brand of chamber-folk includes literate songwriting, fine harmonies, and top drawer musicianship.

Vocals twine around “catchy arrangements of guitar, mandolin, and accordion” that draw from jazz, classical, folk, and pop influences, he said.

Quiet Hum is the third album from West My Friend since the band formed at the turn of the decade. The group’s 2012 debut, Place, garnered several nominations, including Roots Album of the Year and Song of the Year at the Vancouver Island Music Awards. Its follow-up, 2014’s When The Ink Dries, was nominated for the Oliver Schroer Pushing The Boundaries Award at the Canadian Folk Music Awards and received the Readers’ Choice award for Best New Sound of 2014 at Sleeping Bag Studios.

The event takes place at Duncan United Church, 246 Ingram St. Doors open at 7 p.m. with an open stage at 7:30, followed by the featured artists.

Tickets are $10 at the door only ($5 for CFG members).

Admission is free for open stage performers (space permitting). Find Kelly to sign up for the open stage.

Cowichan Valley Citizen