The last I heard, Hoquiam was inches away from signing with Secretly Canadian. This would make sense, since Hoquiam is the project of Drake Jurado and his older, well-known brother Damien, who has been a part of the Illinois label’s roster for years. Damien plays guitar and sings. Drake plays keyboards, wears sunglasses and looks kinda intimidating. Together, the brothers Jurado make music that harkens back to their youth growing up in Grays Harbor, WA. The two times I’ve seen them, I walked not humming the songs (something I normally do after a Jurado show) but rather contemplating the moods the two created. As with everything he does, Jurado’s vocals for Hoquiam are as rustic and warm as a piece of driftwood, and his finger-plucks on acoustic are as hypnotic as a campfire. Drake matches those familiar elements with drawn-out moody notes evoking the low-hanging clouds of Coastal Washington. Apparently, all the songs act as a biography of their time spent in the region. If they did, in fact, sign to Secretly Canadian, I hope they release the record quick, because I want to pay attention to the words as if it were a Raymond Carver collection.

Sat., July 19, 7:30 p.m., 2008