Pop-folk singer and songwriter Noah Gundersen was born May 31, 1989 in Olympia, Washington into an extremely religious but also very musical family that frowned on secular music, a view that he eventually abandoned. Gundersen began taking piano lessons before he was a teen, and after inheriting an electric Epiphone guitar from his father in 2002, he began tracking songs on his father's recording equipment. By the time he was 16, Gundersen was gigging in local cafés, and in 2006 his sister Abby, an excellent violinist, cellist, pianist, and harmony singer, starting accompanying him. The duo added a rhythm section and began performing as a full band under the name the Courage. Gundersen also formed the post-hardcore group Beneath Oceans in 2007, but after finishing an unreleased EP, the band called it quits in 2008 and Gundersen resumed his solo career. His first solo release, Brand New World, was recorded in Eugene, Oregon in a home studio and featured plenty of his sister's playing and singing. It appeared that same year, as did a live album with the Courage, Live at the Triple Door. Two more EPs followed, Saints & Liars in 2009 and Family in 2011. His full-length solo debut, Ledges, arrived on Dualtone Music early in 2014. Gundersen released a tour-exclusive EP titled Twenty-Something later in 2014, and his more indie-edged but still intimate sophomore album, Carry the Ghost, arrived in the summer of 2015. Fleshing out his sound even more with occasional synths and prominent effects, 2017's White Noise marked his debut for Cooking Vinyl. ~ Steve Leggett