A 20-year overnight sensation: Librarians to play Sunset Lounge

Published 1:30 am Wednesday, July 15, 2026

PORT ANGELES — Joel Ricci beheld the brick building and was enchanted.

He went inside and asked the workers: “Can I sweep? Or something?”

Ricci, a musician, just wanted to be in the atmosphere.

He had walked into Bison Book Binding & Letterpress of Bellingham, where at first he “got rejected a couple times.”

Later, though, Bison’s owners called and asked him back, to sweep.

That was about two decades ago.

Ricci, who lives in Port Angeles, and Bison owners Carly James and Kevin Nelson soon began making music together, forming a band called Librarians.

Along with slide guitarist Nakos Marker, the group will celebrate the release of their album, “Still Here,” with a concert at Field Arts & Events Hall’s Sunset Lounge on Friday night.

Tickets to the 7:30 p.m. show are available at fieldhallevents.org and at the Field Hall box office at 201 W. Front St., Port Angeles.

The Sunset Lounge setting, with its views of water and mountains, fits the musicians, with their Pacific Northwest-crafted songs.

The quartet describes their music as folk-rock-jazz, with a dreamy, rich sound. Librarians — they don’t put a “the” in their name — explore a variety of intangible things in their writing. Loss, transformation and the fragility of life make their way into what the four like to call “music for listening.”

That may sound kind of obvious. Yet the motto is Librarians’ way of inviting people to truly tune in, to the stories set to music. Let the distractions go; glide into the songs.

Ricci, who has lived in Port Angeles for 10 years, loves being close to nature.

“I use my peaceful time in the woods to be creative,” he said, adding that his bandmates inspire him as well.

While they’re not literally librarians, the musicians share a love for letterpress printing and making books from the ground up.

James also is a designer, while Nelson, her husband, is a philosopher as well as a bookbinder and bassist. Together with Ricci and Marker, they make a multigenerational ensemble, ages 30-something to 60.

Ricci, a professional trumpeter known for his work with the band Funkways, has a degree in musical composition from Eastern Washington University. He moved to Port Angeles in 2016 seeking a home base near to nature, not too far from Seattle and Bellingham, where his musical collaborators live, and fairly close to Everett, where his parents are.

“One bonus of moving here was that I was able to reconnect and study and perform with my old college music theory teacher, who was teaching at Peninsula College when I came here,” Ricci noted. “Dr. David P. Jones, a world-class composer and musical giant in our backyard.”

James spoke about the feeling she has when she’s up on stage with Librarians, and the music is flowing around and through her. There’s a sense of focus and peace, she said.

While James is the electric guitarist and lead singer in the band, she revels in the feeling of creative collaboration.

“I sort of have a problem in my life of doing too many things,” she added.

James is a port commissioner and a business owner and operator.

When she’s singing — interpreting Ricci’s songwriting, translating emotions — James is not thinking about anything else. She’s immersed in the moment. With her voice and the strings, she’s connecting with her loved ones on stage and sharing it all with the audience.

The new album from Librarians can be found on the band’s website, designed by James, at https://librarians.land. The site also has information about the band’s tour, which includes five additional shows in the region this summer.

“We’re a 20-year overnight sensation,” Ricci quipped.

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Diane Urbani de la Paz is a freelance writer and photographer who lives in Port Townsend.