Cyrena Wages feat Caleb Eliott

Cyrena Wages fell in love with music on the country backroads between Millington and Shelby Forest, two small towns just north of Memphis. Her debut 2024 album, Vanity Project, is both an exercise in rebellion against years of conditioning, as well as a way of processing her own struggles, healing, and growth. As much as Memphis shaped her positively, there were aspects of growing up as a woman in the South that didn’t align with who she wanted to become. Cyrena tapped producer Matt Ross-Spang (Charley Crockett, St. Paul and the Broken Bones, Margo Price) to helm Vanity Project at Southern Grooves Studio in Memphis.

Caleb Elliott began lending cello to all kinds of albums in the Lafayette music scene, culminating in a moment that would change his trajectory and finally move him out of Louisiana. In 2014, singer-songwriter Dylan LeBlanc met Elliott and encouraged him to relocate to Muscle…