Isabeau Waia'u Walker

Isabeau Waia’u Walker has had to get creative to attempt the question of genre: “bright gloom,” “joy adjacent;” “island of broken, demented toys.” Hailing from her homeland Hawaii and having spent the latter half of her life in Oregon’s Pacific Northwest. Unless touring with Y La Bamba, in which she sings backup vocals, her feet and roots are always close to the shores of the Pacific Ocean (yearning for and pulled by her packs). Experience, observations and negotiations with race, culture, gender and class are inextricably woven into her purpose and product. Songs of love. Songs of community and fight, of life and self. She lives in attractive vulnerability and sincere humility despite the power of her performances and songs. An early retirement as a full time secondary school teacher in 2019 has allowed her to tour, play local shows, and record more, releasing her EP, Better Metric, in 2020, then her first LP, Body, in 2022, with engineer, bandmate and friend Ryan Oxford at The Center for Sound, Light and Color. Since those releases she’s unsurprisingly caught the attention of and has been featured in and on several publications, podcasts and programs such as OPB, Live Wire Radio, Vortex Music Magazine, Willamette Week, KEXP. Isabeau has dedicated this last year to the anticipated release of her third record, an LP titled Heavyweight, out in 2024.