Anika Pyle

Anika Pyle (they/she) is a queer singer-songwriter, experimental performer, and spoken word poet exploring the dialectic of the human experience–joy in one hand, sorrow in the other.

Pyle grew up on a cattle ranch in the Colorado prairie but promptly left the West at 17 for New York City, nurturing a career out of the Brooklyn punk and indie scene with her bands Chumped and katie ellen.

Wild River, Pyle’s first solo record, weaves stark spoken word poetry with muted sonic landscapes to unpack the grief of losing my father to opioid overdose in 2019. The record calls upon the ways bodies of water are shared and regenerated through cycles, much like the intergenerational struggles of trauma and addiction. Robin Hilton from NPR said about Wild River, “some of what she says about failure should be chiseled in stone and put on display somewhere.”

Their latest release – Four Corners – is an eclectic collection of songs exploring the sonic, cultural, and physical landscape of the American Southwest. There is one song for each state in the four corners – Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, and Colorado. Pyle takes us from twangy indie rock to country waltz to Americana ballad, all while infusing their signature impassioned delivery and near-painfully poignant exploration of human emotion.

Pyle has toured the US, Europe, and Canada, sharing stages with artists like Jeff Rosenstock, Bartees Strange, Pup, Laura Stevenson, The Hold Steady, and Slaughter Beach, Dog. They have written and sang for film and television, including Cartoon Network’s Craig of the Creek and the 2017 Alex Ross Perry film Her Smell, starring Elizabeth Moss.

Pyle has collaborated with producers like The Range (Domino Records) and Jonathan Benedict (Rihanna, Azealia Banks, Yoko Ono). Her work has been featured and praised by NPR, Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly, New York Magazine, Billboard, SPIN and more.

They split their time between Fort Collins, Colorado and Queens, NY.