Ash Relics released his self-titled debut album on streaming services in 2020. The project initially focused on a new style, blending hip-hop, blues, jazz and rock by playing extended improvisations over instrumental hip-hop beats, and writing blues-rock songs in a classic retro style to complement these jams. Soon Ash began producing sincere folk songs, as well as various instrumental tracks, often with a lofi sensibility. The album Ash Relics 2 represents this folkier side. In 2024, Ash committed to release a single every week of the year, releasing new lofi beats, live versions of cover songs or previously released original songs, live instrumental jams, as well as previously unreleased past works.
Ash lives in a small town in the Sierra Nevada mountains, near Lake Tahoe, on the border of California and Nevada with his wife and 2 children. He can be found gigging in bars and restaurants in the area. His part-time bluegrass band Bison has been a local mainstay in the Tahoe music scene since 2008. He has recently joined Ted Kennedy in his band The Residents Tahoe, as mandolin player and guitarist. Along the way he has been associated with acts like the garage punk band Garbage Can, previously Thee Apes, and the rock band Pleasure Bonus. He has opened shows for acts such as Elvin Bishop, Peter Rowan, and the Infamous Stringdusters. Ash Relics shows are eclectic, featuring original and cover songs in the genres as diverse as folk, blues, jazz, country, classic rock, along with the signature Ash Relics style of electric blues improv over hip-hop beats. Ash Relics is a multi-instrumentalist, rotating between guitar, harmonica, alto, tenor, and baritone saxophones, violin, mandolin, and Indian harmonium, and various percussion instruments.
Ash’s musical influences are wide and diverse, owing to years of obsessive thirst for new and different music, and has been deeply inspired by diverse sources. The classic sounds of the twentieth century like Bob Dylan, Buddy Holly, Hank Williams were present throughout early childhood, while the earliest inspirations as a teenager learning to play guitar were classic rock guitar guys like Jimmy Page and Jimi Hendrix. Over the years his tastes ranged widely, from classic hip-hop to underground rock and oddities like Tom Waits and The Velvet Underground, as well as all sorts of extreme and experimental music like hardcore punk and noise rock.
