Alaska Reid hails from a frontier city in Southwestern Montana whose population lingers around 8,000 residents, and while Reid now works in Los Angeles, she can’t give up her hometown. Her career began here, where she sang in basements, churches, and gyms before starting her first band, Alyeska. Soon talent, and her parents’ minivan, drove her to tour further west. Now, Reid splits her time between the coastline and the mountainous West, splitting what time she can between the two and working in both cities. “I’m interested in the effects of place on songwriting and the idea of regional writing,” she says. “I like to think I’m in a healthy relationship with it, where I’m still really inspired by my hometown, but I’m not trapped by it.”

Ask Reid how she’d define her sound and she’ll hesitate before landing on “Mountain Pop,” drawing from the deep traditions of American country songwriting, the big, gritty guitars of Northwestern grunge, and the unrushed ease of Southern California living. In the depths of the pandemic, she released Big Bunny, an EP indebted to a coming-of-age chasing rabbits, throwing bottles in the creek, and kissing in damp old houses. In the years since, she’s