Spencer LaJoye Loops a Whole Choir Out of One Voice at The Grace Note

Friday, August 14, 7:30pm | Pine Plains, NY

Spencer LaJoye plays The Grace Note on August 14, building songs live with a weathered acoustic guitar, a loop pedal, and vocals stacked layer upon layer until a single voice fills the room like a small choir. LaJoye describes the first layer as the foundation, then a harmony gets pushed on top, then another sound on top of that, until there can be fifteen versions of themself singing at once.

LaJoye grew up one of eight kids in a family of musicians in rural southwest Michigan, picked up the violin at five, and studied classical music through college before trading the bow for a pen. They wrote their first EP as a closeted queer kid at a conservative Christian college while pursuing a theology degree—songwriting and theologizing became, in their words, tools of self-empowerment inside a culture of shame.

After coming out as nonbinary, LaJoye released "Remember the Oxygen," an EP that included two songs honored in the 2021 Kerrville New Folk Songwriting Competition. Their 2021 single "Plowshare Prayer" went viral and became something like a modern folk hymn, earning them a devoted following.

The Grace Note, The Stissing Center, 2950 Church St., Pine Plains, NY. Tickets $20 at thestissingcenter.org.