gash is on the rise

Justin Vernon isn’t the official mayor of Eau Claire, Wisconsin, but his influence is felt locally and well beyond it. The Bon Iver talisman casts a larger-than-life shadow over the sturdy Midwestern city, an hour from Minneapolis and a few more from Madison and Chicago. His mythos reaches beyond his discography and deep into Eau Claire itself, through April Base Studios and the Eaux Claires Music & Arts Festival, which returned last summer after an eight-year hiatus.Tucked into that community-minded, soft acoustic orbit was gash, an amorphous, experimental group whose eerie percussion and scavenged samples cut against the city’s gentler folk leanings. Their presence at the festival laid bare another facet of Eau Claire’s tight-knit music scene: the weird, restless pockets of creativity that gather anywhere people make room for them. “We’re kind of the black sheep, but so is everyone else,” says gash founder and lead vocalist Logan Nyberg. Nyberg started the project while living in California. Since moving back to Eau Claire 10 years ago, he has added a second guitar, brought Bathke in on vocals and keyboard, and watched other members cycle in and out. Now a five-piece, he has ...