Here is another of our “Summer Stars,” emerging acts featured in the 2011 Relix Festival Guide who will be making the rounds this summer…

The Head and the Heart, which formed in the summer of 2009, crafts songs with resonant folk harmonies and pop sensibilities – replete with sweeping strings and jaunty piano melodies, as well as visceral, percussive stomps and claps. Several of the band members met at an open mic night in Seattle, while two members of the quintet went to high school and played in a band together back on the East Coast. “Josiah [Johnson, vocals/guitar/percussion,] came up with it as a reaction to his days spent in an office,” says drummer Tyler Williams of the band’s moniker. “We all seemed to gather around it to help justify the sacrifices we were making to play music.”

The Head and the Heart self-released its eponymous record in June 2010 and Sub Pop Records signed the band shortly after. The genre-crossing sextet draws influence from “The Beatles and a lot of old soul,” he says, adding that the Seattle music community also sparks ideas in the creative process. In the live format, people can expect “a more propulsive, energized experience than on record,” Williams says, while describing the group’s honest tunes as “sunshine, rain, food, love and sleep…. We improvise and change little things all the time for our own sanity’s sake.”

Appearing at: Sasquatch!, Bonnaroo, Telluride Bluegrass, Calgary Folk, Newport Folk and more.