The story has it that in late 2011 Minus the Bear‘s Erin Tate approached David Totten on The Quiet Ones to collaborate on some music. Tate’s wife was in The Quite Ones at the time and it struck him that Totten had the musical chops and style to be more out there. So they started working together and Black Hills was formed. The band is rounded out by Eric Sturgeon (The Lonely Forest), and Matt Benham (Black Swedes), and they approach music in a style of indie rock that borrows heavily from 60′s and 70′s prog rock and the more folksy sounds of outspoken trubadours.\r \r True to their hometown of Seattle, Black Hills‘ music evokes a loneliness that is only felt in the wintertime in days where the sun struggles to show itself. It’s drab and grey but yet having a sensitive cheeriness somewhere deep in the crevaces. It’s an odd mix of feels and sounds that produce peculiar emotions.