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Dan Kirkwood and his Juneau band will perform songs off his third major release at this year’s Alaska Folk Festival.

His five-track EP “All Lovers, Animals” invites the listener in with bright guitars and alt-country hooks. His opening track, “On Fire,” explores a new confidence and a romantic side to Kirkwood’s songwriting. 

“Songs that are about people as animals, people as lovers, lovers as animals and the common themes that run through all of that life,” Kirkwood said. “The experiences that people have in their romantic relationships are at one moment animal and at one moment something incredibly higher and I don’t think there is any difference between the two.”

It’s a stark contrast to his dark and scenic 2014 album “Space Country,” that he said was written after a hard year.

The first two tracks of the new album were recorded in New York with his college buddy and professional musician Tommy Siegel who tours with the indie-pop band Jukebox the Ghost.

“Touch wood, every time we’ve gotten together one or two great things have happened,” said Kirkwood. 

Beginning with only a guitar riff and vocal melody from Kirkwood, they recorded the song “Manhattan, Montana” in just under a day in Siegel’s Brooklyn apartment. The song has a slinky, ‘70s vibe inspired by bands like Dire Straits and Steely Dan, and features banjo, vibraphone, backwards guitar loops and several acoustic guitars.

“We just threw the kitchen sink at it and hoped for the best,” Seigel said.

Siegel said they push each other and as a producer, he’s tasked with interpreting Kirkwood’s muse on the fly.

“He just kept saying like, ‘What if it sounded like wind on the prairie but through a tremolo effect and if there was a spooky organ?’ and I said, ‘OK, let’s try it.’ So I started downloading wind samples online and playing around with it,” Siegel said.

Even though he lives in New York, Siegel has been a great songwriting colleague, Kirkwood said. They send each other song samples on their phones.

“We have shared songs with each other that (we) both think are great songs. I’ve shared trash with Tommy, just trash songs and he’s been very supportive,” Kirkwood said. “He is far and away better at this than I am, and it is so cool to be doing anything with someone who is really good at it, in that they make you better at it. They bring out the best in you.”

The collection of songs featured on “All Lovers, Animals” combine Siegel’s pop sensibilities with the organic sounds of Kirkwood’s Juneau band, Goldwing. Local musicians Dan Desloover and Ben Higdon who play in Goldwing contribute bass and lead guitar on the tracks “Nomad” and “The Road Home.”

Kirkwood said there’s an element to Goldwing that will always be jazzier because of drummer Clay Good, sneakier because of guitarist Ben Higdon, and moody and melodic because of bassist Dan Desloover. Now with the addition of Juneau musician Steve Nelson on keyboards, Kirkwood expects the songs to take an even more dramatic turn for Folk Fest.

Goldwing plays at 10 p.m. Thursday at Centennial Hall and at 4 p.m Saturday at the Alaskan Bar for KXLL’s Showcase and Day Party. For a live stream, festival schedule and more coverage, visit our Folk Fest page here. 

The Carper Family of Austin, Texas, is the guest artist for the 42nd annual Alaska Folk Festival. The four-piece band debuts in Juneau on Thursday night at Centennial Hall.

Listen to this audio sampler with Beth Chrisman, who writes songs, sings and plays fiddle in the band.

The Carper Family’s first set is at 8 p.m. Thursday night. They’ll also lead workshops throughout the weekend, and will close the festival at 9 p.m. Sunday. For a live stream, festival schedule and more coverage, visit our Folk Fest page here.

The Alaska Folk Festival, which some call the state’s largest talent show, runs April 4-10 in Juneau. It’s a sure sign of spring for hundreds of musicians from all over the state who come to play, jam and listen.

We caught up with a Juneau singer-songwriter getting ready for the festival’s 42nd year. Kray Van Kirk is one of many performers who are serious about their music but don’t leave their day jobs.

Kray Van Kirk loves to talk guitars, especially a custom-built, carbon-fiber instrument he hopes will arrive in time for the festival. He also likes to sing, write songs and produce music videos.

It’s his passion, but not his profession. During the day, he’s a fisheries statistician for the state.

And like most folk festival acts, he enjoys sharing the stage with a wide variety of performers.

“You get people who are incredibly talented and have been doing this for years right next to people who are onstage for the very, very first time,” he said. “It’s fun!”

Alaska Folk Festival Board President Erin Hanson said the festival’s mission includes promoting amateur musicians.

Hanson, a guitarist and singer, said it’s tradition to allow anyone who fills out a form to try for a 15-minute set.

“If you’re an amateur musician, working on something in your living room, 15 minutes is a pretty achievable amount of time. And you don’t really have that many opportunities to play for an audience of a thousand people,” she said.

Not everyone makes it in. But it’s a question of time, not talent. About 140 acts will play this year, from a fifth-grade string band to a septuagenarian blues singer. Only one guest artist or band is paid. This year, it’s The Carper Family, traditional musicians from Austin.

The Alaska Folk Festival attracts beginners, as well as a steady stream of experienced players who don’t try to make it their living.

One is Van Kirk, a multi-genre musician who’s inspired by singers and instrumentalists from the British Isles.

He started learning guitar when he was 8, living in northern California.

“It was a toss-up between a ukulele and a guitar,” he said. “I said I wanted to play something. And probably, it was a good idea that the local music store had no ukulele.”

He kept playing and began performing while in college, which included street busking in Germany. He eventually dropped out of school to hit the road.

“I was living in my van. And this was in the days before the internet and the cellphone. So I was booking shows and making calls from these roadside pay phones, shoving quarters in there and trying to get people to book me for shows,” he said.

Touring eventually brought Van Kirk to Southeast Alaska, and he liked it. He lived in Sitka for a while before settling in Juneau around 15 years ago.

He took a break for a while to focus on raising his young daughter. But he didn’t stop writing songs.

He did take a 20-year break from recording CDs. He posted his music online at no charge. And even though he’s selling his new album, The Road to Elfland, he’s also giving it away through his website.

The album is Van Kirk’s latest musical project. It’s a 12-song CD, plus a video, based on the legend of Thomas the Rhymer, a 13th-century Scottish poet led off to a place called Elfland by the Queen of Faeries.

One of the songs is “Lost Lover’s Waltz.”

It’s part of his fascination with fantasy, folk tales and science fiction.

“What I do when I play songs is I’m reinventing myth. And I think that we can’t afford to lose myth. But we need to have myth that is relevant for us these days,” he said.

He’ll sing some of the Elfland songs at this year’s event.

“I’ve trotted out some new songs at the folk festival here a number of times over the years. And it’s always a great place to go on with a new piece and say, ‘Here you go,’” he said.

“I think people are very, very accepting and even if they’re not, it’s a great place to do it. Because if people are not accepting, they are saying, ‘That one doesn’t work,’ that’s a really valuable piece of feedback.”

Van Kirk’s folk festival set starts at about 9:45 p.m. Wednesday, April 6. The whole folk festival will be live streamed through ktoo.sandbox.5mts.com beginning at 7 p.m. April 4.

Ed Schoenfeld is a regular performer and emcee at the Alaska Folk Festival.

Illuminated by a single light, a four-piece band sets up inside the wheelhouse of a fishing boat moored in Juneau’s Harris Harbor.

“We’re Goldwing, and this is a fisherman’s desk,” said Dan Kirkwood before the song begins.

Kirkwood fronts the band competing in NPR Music’s video competition to discover the next great performer to play the Tiny Desk.

“You end up with one light, the light just above the helm. You can see that it’s a gray day in Juneau. You can see the forward leaning windows of the wheelhouse and the actual helm,” said Kirkwood of the band’s submission. “It feels like Juneau.”

Goldwing was one of 25 Alaska bands who submitted videos of their original music to NPR’s Tiny Desk contest.

Today, NPR Music announced that Duluth, Minnesota’s Gaelynn Lea beat out 6,000 other contestants to become the winner of the second-ever Tiny Desk contest. Lea will tour the country, appear on the NPR program Ask Me Another, and of course, play a coveted Tiny Desk concert at NPR headquarters in Washington, D.C.

What about Goldwing’s fisherman’s desk? That’s part of the contest rules. All videos must take place at a desk — any desk — emulating Bob Boilen’s in D.C. Since 2008, Boilen’s desk has been host to nearly 500 intimate performances from Yo-Yo Ma and Death Cab for Cutie to Adele.

From Bethel to Fairbanks, Anchorage to the Big Island of Hawaii, bands showcase their original songs written in and inspired by the Last Frontier.

For second-year contestants Emma Hill and Brian Daste, the contest was about overcoming geographic distance to create their video for their song “A Long Way to Run.” With Hill in Hawaii and Daste in Oregon during the submission period, recording together meant that Daste taught himself to use green screen technology to create the illusion of performing in the same place.

“No matter what we did it was probably going to come off as a little wacky, but just wanting to do it anyway just for fun. And honestly, mostly so that Brian could have fun playing around with green screen,” Hill said.

Anchorage-based musician Hannah Yoter saw the contest as an opportunity to make a video for one of her newer songs “A Million Tears.” Her five-piece ensemble recorded the song in a band member’s office with the help of a tech-savvy friend.

“It’s really nice to not only have audio but to actually have a video where you can watch the band and you can see them playing — just to have something more than just an iPhone video at a concert.”

With plans to record a full length album in April, the band’s already getting a response from NPR’s national audience.

“Right after we posted the video we were contacted by multiple people about multiple gigs, people we’ve never met before,” said Yoter. “The NPR tag on it makes it available to a broader spectrum of folks. It’s getting a lot of exposure to places we never thought it would. There’s only so far you can go in Alaska.”

Though the path from Alaska to the Tiny Desk in D.C. is still long, the contest brought 25 Alaska artists a little closer. You can watch all of their video submissions in this playlist.

The 14th annual Oratory Event is Saturday at the University of Alaska Southeast. The day-long event, based in Alaska Native languages, includes storytelling, speeches and dramatic presentations of poetry, songs and more.

“It’s really amazing to watch the students in action,” said Kolene James on a KTOO’s Juneau Afternoon. James is the director of the Native and Rural Student Center at UAS that organizes the event.

“They’re really passionate about their presentations. They really put their heart into their presentations and you can tell when they get up to the microphone, they just emote their energy, their love into their presentations. So it’s pretty inspiring,” said James.

Participants’ presentations must be between 5 and 15 minutes long and this year’s theme is equity.

“We have students who are talking about environmental issues, they’re talking about education and their concerns, they’re talking about the health care system and unmet needs in their home communities. We have students from all over Alaska who are attending UAS. We even have a student from Hawaii who is going to participate as well and there’s a lot of similarities in the inequities that we experience in both states, Hawaii and Alaska. This is a great opportunity to hear our college students, and if we have some brave high school students, what’s on their mind,” said James.

In the theme of equity, all participants will receive help with tuition. The free event begins at 9 a.m. Saturday in the Egan Lecture Hall.