As longtime members of Blue Sky Miners, the musical duo of Eric “The Duke” Duquette and Jena “Goldie” Gogo had released two albums, toured North America, and enjoyed national radio play. Still there seemed to be uncharted musical waters on the horizon, so Duke & Goldie escaped from Toronto and set out for a small island in the Pacific Northwest in May of 2020. 

The rag tag pirate-like community of (aptly named) Protection Island turned out to be the perfect coastal environment for the pair’s musical evolution to take place. Fire lit jams, a newfound connection to nature and deep reflection on their roles as settlers in this land gave spark to the self-titled EP that the now Vancouver-based twosome are proud to present. 

Recorded with producer and pedal steel ace Aaron Goldstein (Julianna Riolino, Daniel Romano, Kathleen Edwards) with rhythm pros Anna Ruddick and Dani Nash, Duke & Goldie charts out landscapes and stories from thrilling rocky mountain highs, to mysterious remote deserts and walks the line barefoot between warm-folk storytelling and mystical country twang. All while asking deeper questions about the duo’s place in the land they love so much.

Singles “Courage,” “Rocky Mountain Feeling” and focus track “See You There” navigate the ups and downs of life on the journey to self-discovery. “See You There” was written in contribution to a fundraiser for a women’s shelter, for which Goldie ruminated about a spectrum of tough experiences—inequities, systemic failures, abuse—in search of the beauty in human connection. “We wanted to tell anyone experiencing adversity that they are not only seen and worthy of love where they are, but that they deserve so much more,” she states.