Best Quiet Giant
Keeled Scales
Over the past seven years, local indie imprint Keeled Scales has quietly built up a stacked roster and tastemaking reputation for a certain songwriter niche. Label head Tony Presley presents as unassumingly as his artists, but services an incomparable ear for underrecognized and deeply sincere songcraft, waxing local standouts (the Deer, Sun June, Jordan Moser, Will Johnson) and nationally acclaimed alt-folkers (Buck Meek, Twain, Erin Durant, Katy Kirby). Presley’s picks are building a community among the hushed house show contingent and launching them to bigger but no less enthralled stages.