The Story

Myshkin’s career spans three decades of composing and recording, performance, production, international touring and collaboration. Her curious nature has led her to live in many remarkable places, and kept her creations evolving, her nine solo records traveling though raw-folk, nomad-swing, torchjazz, punk-poetry, desert-blues, and electronic post-rock.

Prince Myshkin, Dostoyevsky's Idiot, is good because he's pure. Myshkin, the folk chanteuse with desert dust and swamp murk swirling in her voice, is good because she's impure; Celtic, bluegrass, Latin, klezmer, and punk snake through her story-songs. —Village Voice

For all her wanderlust, there are signatures that hold steady in the work: lyrics thick with worldview and sense memory, a hypnotic rhythmic pulse, surprising tonal and harmonic combinations, and singing that is a practice of faith, made of equal parts courage, quest, and release.

Myshkin’s voice is not to be taken lightly. A gorgeous rich alto infused with natural drama and melancholy, and best applied to her own songs: hushed one act plays that speak volumes. —New Orleans Times Picayune

Raised in a musical Dutch immigrant household in the Midwestern U.S., Myshkin studied theater until the road called, then spent her early adulthood writing songs, working every kind of job, and wandering the U.S. and Europe, before a fortunate landing in Louisiana in 1993.

Schooled by the living history of New Orleans for a decade, Myshkin was a central figure of the city's acoustic and alternative scenes in the 90's and early 00's. Touring relentlessly with her then-partner Mike West, playing over 300 shows a year, she made five records of her own material and guested on many more, and was honored with several New Orleans music industry nominations and awards.

In 2001 she formed  Myshkin's Ruby Warblers, with John Lutz on upright bass and Scott Magee on drums. Their first record, Rosebud Bullets (2002), a chanteuse-rock farewell to New Orleans, took Myshkin’s work to another level with critical accolades and spots on many of the year's top ten lists, and was a source of inspiration for many younger bands.

A brilliantly cohesive work that confirms Myshkin as one of the best songwriters around. —FRoots, UK

Myshkin moved to Portland, OR in 2002 in search of new sonic inspirations and a more progressive political climate. There she worked in partnership with the electronic musician Sailor Banks, creating two records, Corvidae (2004) and Sigh Semaphore (2006). In 2008 Myshkin left the city to co-found a permaculture Artfarm, where she hand built an earth-walled studio in which  she created the heady and hypnotic That Diamond Lust  (2012).

Touring That Diamond Lust brought Myshkin to the artists’ hideout of Joshua Tree, California, where she met and married the herbalist, Grateful Desert founder and cellist Jenny Q. Jenny’s sudden illness in the first year of their relationship rocked the tight knit community, changed the family’s life forever, and was the experience around which Jenny’s book Held Together, and Myshkin’s record Trust and the High Wire were built.

Myshkin found a well of support for her explorations of ever more theatrical endeavors, satires and circuses in the desert, the Joshua Tree Music Fest, the Lou Harrison House, and other local arts organizations supporting the creation of the Royal Rabble Circus, Po^tion: Warning Signs, Fresh Research, Trust.Together, and experimental film and animation.

In 2019 Myshkin, Jenny, and their daughter moved back to the northwest, opening a second apothecary, Grateful Rain, in Astoria, Oregon. Composition and virtual work during the pandemic received support from the Oregon Arts Commission.

In the summer of 2022, Myshkin was granted a Global Talent Visa to reside and work in the UK. In January of 2023 the family relocated to Scotland, long a favorite tour location, and a place they all felt drawn, to create their permanent home.

Truly an independent artist and a “musicians’ musician,” Myshkin has impacted listeners and collaborators one show and recording at a time, slowly brewing a far-flung and eclectic community.

Discography

Trust and the High Wire — Myshkin Warbler — DoubleSalt 2018
That Diamond Lust — Myshkin's Ruby Warblers — DoubleSalt 2012
Sigh Semaphore — Myshkin's Ruby Warblers — DoubleSalt 2006
Corvidae — Myshkin's Ruby Warblers — DoubleSalt 2004
Rosebud Bullets — Myshkin's Ruby Warblers — DoubleSalt 2002
Why do all the Country Girls Leave? — Myshkin — Binky 2000
Blue Gold — Myshkin — Binky 1998
Dr. Plague and Other Lullabies — Myshkin Impossible — Wreckit 1995
Slate — Myshkin — Wreckit 1993

Selected Venues

Tenor Guitar Gathering, OR, USA 2012, 2013, 2020, 2022
Joshua Tree Music Fest, CA, USA 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020
Brooklyn Americana Fest 2020
New Orleans Jazz Fest, LA, USA 2001, 2014
Habrovka Festival, Prague, CZ 2013
WalkAbout Fest, NL 2013
Pickathon, OR, USA 2002
Vancouver Folk Festival 2002
High Sierra, CA, USA 2001
Naked Song Fest, NL 2001
Folkwoods Fest, NL 2000, 2001
Broadstairs Fest, UK 2000, 2001
Port Fairy Fest, Australia 1999