Big Harp is the duo comprised of Chris Senseney and Stefanie Drootin-Senseney, the Saddle Creek artists recently released “Runs to Blue,” the title track from their forthcoming LP Friday via Saddle Creek. In keeping with Runs to Blue’s themes of wanderlust and loss, love for your children and love for your lover, accepting one’s increasing age while also lamenting that we can never be what we once were, “Runs to Blue” is a song about familial ties and transitions.

Big Harp will celebrate the release of Runs to Blue with events around Los Angeles including a listening party and performance at Deadly Wax on Friday, April 3rd and a show at Sid the Cat Auditorium on Friday, April 10th with Maria Taylor and Charlie Hickey. Later in April, they’ll tour throughout California.

Chris Senseney says, “”Runs to Blue” is a parent-child relationship song, although I think it could apply to other relationships as well. It can be hard to watch the painful process of growth, and to watch people wrestle with the certainty of sorrow and grief and disappointment. All you can do sometimes is love each other the best you can, even when your best doesn’t feel like enough. And that, I think, is kind of the overarching theme of the whole record. Musically, I think this one has a lot of nice melodies in the bass line, and the instrumental section foregrounds the kind of polyphonic interplay that underpins the whole record.”

Fifteen years have passed since Big Harp’s debut album White Hat, and over a decade since the 2015 release of Waveless, the third—and, it seemed from the outside, final—Big Harp record. Their return as Big Harp was an inevitability waiting on the right life and creative circumstances, where the spark of inspiration dovetailed with a chance to set aside some studio time. Pierre de Reeder—the Rilo Kiley bassist who had recorded White Hat—hosted a loose backyard show. Senseney played a few songs de Reeder had never heard, and de Reeder wondered if the couple would like to come by his Highland Park studio, 64 Sound, and record them. Senseney had just lost his longtime job, so they could do it cheap and casual. There was no goal of making a record, but it steadily happened a few songs at a time, anyway. Drootin and Senseney put the songs down as a pair, her spry harmonies slipping beneath his oaken voice while their instruments curled around one another like a hug or a ripple of laughter.

Runs to Blue was Recorded totally live in the studio with only acoustic guitar, bass, and two voices who know one another like hand and glove, Runs to Blue is the simplest sounding Big Harp record. The LP is described as their most emotionally complex release.

Big Harp 2026 Tour Dates:

Fri. April 3 – Los Angeles, CA @ Deadly Wax
Fri. April 10 – Los Angeles, CA @ Sid the Cat Auditorium (with Maria Taylor & Charlie Hickey)
Thu. April 30 – San Francisco, CA @ TBD
Fri. May 1 – Oakland, CA @ Wyldflwr Arts
Sat. May 2 – San Luis Obispo @ House Show

Pre-Order Runs to Blue by Big Harp HERE