Geist & The Sacred Ensemble
Photo by Shane Williams
Founded in 2006 by frontman Michael Sauder and percussionist Samuel Yoder, Seattle’s Geist & the Sacred Ensemble play anachronistic, haunted music that eats a jagged hole in the bottom of any category you try to place it in before it slips off into the cover of a dank, teeming Pacific Northwest night.
Inspired by Ennio Morricone, George Crumb, and Sauder’s experiences of growing up as a gravedigger from a Christian household in Lancaster, PA, Geist’s dramatic, largely acoustic music glows like an insistent, uncanny ember of a darker, more primordial time.
“There’s a slightly sinister Wicker Man vibe to Geist & the Sacred Ensemble’s compositions, a tribal, primitive aura that can send ripples of unease through urbanized citizens who are detached from their roots.”
- Dave Segal, The Stranger
Available music: