Eskimeaux

Eskimeaux
Eskimeaux performing at NU Afterhours on February 11, 2016.
Background information
Birth name	Gabrielle Smith
Origin	Brooklyn, New York
Genres	Indie pop, Indie rock, Folk, Bedroom pop
Occupation(s)	Singer-Songwriter, Musician
Years active	2007–present
Labels	Double Double Whammy
Associated acts	Frankie Cosmos, Porches (band), Bellows (band), Told Slant
Website	www.eskimeaux.com

Eskimeaux is the recording project of Gabrielle Smith, an American singer-songwriter and producer from Brooklyn. Smith began making and releasing experimental ambient music in 2007. Since then, the solo project has turned into a four-piece indie pop band made up of Oliver Kalb, Told Slant’s Felix Walworth, Jack Greenleaf and Smith herself.

Smith was adopted at a young age and to this day knows little about her family history except for the fact that her father is of Tlingit Eskimo descent. She disclosed in a Tumblr post how her heritage influenced her decision to release music under the name Eskimeaux: "I chose this moniker as a teenager, in a time when I felt like I had been denied an identity — my Tlingit heritage was the only thing I could hold onto about my cultural history that was real. Eskimeaux is basically me: it’s an empowered persona that has brought me warmth and fulfillment in times of isolation and confusion about my origins." Smith spent her youth singing in choir and playing violin but did not start writing and performing her own songs until her late teens. Growing up in Manhattan, Smith also spent many of her teens years going to DIY shows in Brooklyn.

In 2008, Smith enrolled in the University of the Arts (Philadelphia) but dropped out in early 2009. During these two years, Smith met many of her current collaborators and friends of The Epoch, an artist collective based in Brooklyn that Smith later co-founded. The artists that she met during this time opened up her eyes to new music stylings and influenced much of her work. Her early recordings from around this time were more electronic and synth heavy than her more recent releases.

In 2011, Smith released Two Mountains and co-founded the Epoch with friends as a way to support each other and release art under one umbrella. A year later, she released her self-titled album, which was almost entirely made up of re-recorded songs from a series of demos called, Ixsixán. It was with inspiration from her fellow Epoch members and Frankie Cosmos, that Smith overcame her writing block and began to write and record new material through her song-a-day project. Many of the songs written during this time appear on O.K.