The Woodlands

Click the image to watch the video premiere of "In The Dark on Monday" from The Woodlands.

We already liked the husband and wife duo from Portland, Oregon for the self-titled record they released last year. But recently, they made a move that might put them in contention for the hippest indie couple in the universe.

Hannah and Samuel Robertson began making and selling hand-sewn stationary made from old books, and selling their work on Etsy.com. The video began as a project meant to showcase Samuel and Hannah's work. They used some of their music as a background for the original short, but the two liked the footage so much, that they expanded the video to include their entire song. The result is a hand-crafted video featuring artisan stationary and a homemade song.

We challenge you to come up with anything more adorably folksy. If you think of something, leave us a comment. - Paste Magazine

Wife and husband duo the Woodlands, comprised of Hannah and Samuel Robertson, are versed at moving seamlessly from one project to the next. While providing tracks for the indie film Nuummioq as well as fashion designer Rebecca Minkoff’s latest look book, they have also been independently shooting a video for their song “Summerland,” developing their next album, promoting and re-mixing their first album, launching an art project, and soon, becoming the subjects of a documentary by award-winning Swiss filmmaker Kaspar Kasics.

Self-professed film nerds, the Woodlands are excited about the last mention in their very long list of opportunities. Kasics recently flew to the Robertsons home of Portland, Oregon after falling in love with the Woodlands through their MySpace page and wanting the perspective of a musician couple in his film. “It was like a week-long blind date with a director,” Hannah laughs.

Originally from Idaho, the pair have lived in Portland for three years. “We’re a little nomadic,” Hannah confesses. Another stop? Guatemala. After volunteering at an orphanage in the Central American country, the Robertsons reassessed what they wanted to do next. “It always came back to writing songs,” Samuel says. “We committed ourselves to making an album, then moved to Portland to craft a studio.”

Recently accepted by Web giant Pandora, the duo’s self-titled album was recorded inside a blanket fort constructed in a corner of their apartment. “We were really broke and wanted to have a handmade, intimate feeling,” says Hannah, describing the process. “We used blankets, sleeping mats, and pillows to block the outside sounds like neighbors vacuuming and traffic. We recorded everything in Garage Band using our Apple computer.”

“We both play guitar,” Samuel explains. “The other instruments we learned on the spot, like the glockenspiel and child’s accordion. We had this motto: We’re going to ask the songs what they want to be. And so, we tried to be not forceful but intuitive.”

On the intimacy of their music, Samuel is thoughtful. “We know the limits of what we’re exposing and have private things that we keep to ourselves. Something we've lamented over the years is that people seem afraid to engage with each other. Our way to provide an alternative to that is to feel that we’re connecting with people and each other—and to do that requires some degree of vulnerability.”

Woodlands is a gentle, buoyant album threaded with bittersweet moments. “That’s just life” Samuel declares. “There are moments of joy and sweetness; there’s also pain and struggle. You can’t circumnavigate the darkness; it has a string attached to you, you’re tethered to it—but if you can get to the heart of the feeling, you can remove that anchor point.”

Hannah agrees. “I feel it’s important not to avoid painful areas, but rather go into them, through them, and then cross over. It’s an honor when someone says, ‘I was having a rough time and these songs spoke to me and helped me through that.’ When we hear that, we always feel privileged to have created our music for someone else.”

At the moment the couple are in a “reconstructive phase,” focusing on a new art project. Using found, vintage books, the Robertsons hand-sew one of a kind envelopes and other ephemera. The duo shot a short, documentary style video of their artistic process: Augustina Finch will have a gallery launch in October.

Tour plans are on hold until the release of the as-yet-unnamed second album. While developing new songs, the duo is also working on an electro dance remix of their acoustic music. Hannah says, “It’s a really fun departure from what we’ve done. Samuel has always wanted to do something like this. It’ll give people something to dance to when it’s dark and cold in January.” - Venus Zine

Our self-titled debut album has been accepted into Pandora online radio. - The Woodlands

I dig your music.
--Chris Funk, The Decemberists


The music sounds lovely! I will keep an eye out for you!
--Catherine Feeny, Hotel Cafe Tour


I really like your stuff! I would love to see you!
--Sharon Van Etten, Songwriter


The truth is, the music you two are creating has this sheer fragile beauty to it that I've only heard from a few others.
--Greg


The Woodlands' music is hauntingly imbued with a timeless quality.
--Kyle Jablonski


Hannah and Samuel of The Woodlands invite you into an idyllic world of warmth and inherent goodness. The deceptively simple sound, the lyrics, and the texture in Hannah's voice combine to show the truth in the dictum Less Is More. Their music is so attracting you will want to place another log on the fire and be as one in their world.
--Tom Wood
- Artists & Fans

"Gentle yet haunting, mysterious yet familiar, the music of the husband/wife duo the Woodlands is full of intrigue. Their songs paint a land of quiet, sparkling sounds of Samuel Robertson's warm bells, xylophones, violin, acoustic guitar and the whispered vocals of Hannah Robertson. "Summerland" is a perfect slice of what this musical couple is all about. The track's clinks and strums slowly build into an opus about getting away from the world and into a dreamy landscape of serene sound. The Robertsons are a power couple in the making..."

--SPIN



"Hannah muses about daydreams and longings while Samuel fills the sonic atmosphere with enchanting melodies."

--KCRW (Today's Top Tune)



"Serene mosaic of fairytale-like sound."

--CMJ



"A wife and husband indie folk-pop duo, The Woodlands, craft songs of lyrical poetry, lush melodies and lingering revelry. Two of their songs are featured in a feature film from Greenland called "Nuummioq" that recently premiered at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. Additionally, SPIN Magazine featured them as an emerging artist to watch."

--CNN



"The Woodlands' way of life, their history together, even their general way of speaking clearly all flow as sweet poetry, which is very much emblematic of their music as an indie folk-pop duo."

--Music Fashion Magazine



"The Woodlands' whisper pop will be a perfect compliment...just as the day's final hour of sunlight comes to settle on the horizon."

--Willamette Week



"This band could just as easily be a folk-pop duo from Stockholm or Liverpool, or even Berlin. It’s a trait that makes their music unique, and it makes it really, really good."

--FensePost



"The Woodlands album is absolutely an ethereal trip through some of the best indie folk pop you will find (or I have ever found)."

--Slowcoustic



"This is a very good start of a promising band that should keep taking us into their haunting reflections of love and life."

--AW Music



"Honey and haze...A beautiful collection of simply-arranged, but wondrous and poetic sounds."

--Womenfolk



"As soon as we listened we dug out our English dictionaries and started flipping desperately through them, looking for the right words to describe it. They had to be beautiful words, big words, words that hadn't been used before!"

--Letters Have No Arms!



"Captures all of the beauty in their lives in each slow moving pass of the lens...The duo from Portland manages to craft engaging songs that only get better with each listen. Not a bad song in the bunch."

--Hero Hill


"The Woodlands' record contains musing, melody, and intimacy galore, but it also carries a sincere strength that comes naturally to a couple so deeply entwined with another. In hushed tones and layered storytelling, the Woodlands share a tranquil musical bond that’s easy to see and even easier to love."

--Spooonful


- Publications, Blogs & Radio

Hearing about your favorite band getting signed to local labels or being written up in the local press never ceases to thrill. There's something even more pride-inducing about seeing treasured Portland groups start to receive national and international attention, whether it's Starfucker's IBM ads and Spin magazine write-ups or the Shivas being reviewed by (Sound). Another of Portland's more endearing outfits, the Woodlands, are sure to gain a slew of new fans from around the world over the coming months as various upcoming endeavors take the act's music from Greenland to Australia and even into the friendly skies.

Greenlands first international feature film, Nuummioq, currently in post production, will feature music by the Woodlands, who are also presently finalists in both the We Are Listening and the Australian Songwriters Association songwriting contest. If you're flying during the month of October, you might even hear the Woodlands on your plane: Virgin and American Airlines will highlight the duo via a recorded interview and song play featured on their in-flight radio that month.

If all that isn't enough, standout track "Summerland" will soon be championed by music magazines Filter and Paste. Filter has selected "Summerland" to appear on the magazine's quarterly compilation, of which 30,000 discs are pressed and distributed and Paste will feature the track on their website as a Dale's Pale Ale summer download.

"Summerland" demonstrates that all the upcoming attention for the group is well deserved. Gently lilting but also deceptively triumphant, the song's joyful noise invokes the mysterious magic of summer. It's the perfect quiet anthem for a region where it's easy to feel dominated by less than sunny fall and spring conditions that can sometimes seem to last all year round. Despite the clouds this week, there's still plenty of time to tune up your fixies and get out there and ride bikes, and this is the perfect track to accompany two wheeled sojourns on Sauvie's Island. "And we will dance/To the songs that plague our heads/In the Summerland," sings Hannah Robertson. Add one more song to that list. Hey! You've got a little berry on your face!


Arya Imig
8/13/09 - Willamette Week