Eric Dahl is a singer songwriter from the Pacific Northwest who has lived and written in Seattle, Austin, and Athens, Georgia. He studied and published poetry while at the University of Washington and at Oxford University where he won the Isis Poetry Prize. His songs and albums blend folk, rock and country styles to explore local settings and situations with immediacy. The reviews archived here consistently recognize the quality of Dahl's poetic imagery and psychological insights, and the expressiveness of his singing.

His newest collection, Lost Illusions (2021), offers ten songs written between 1975 and 2020, all of them concerned with people, experiences, and historical events in Seattle and King County. The CD is scheduled for release in late summer 2021. His highly acclaimed first CD, Knack for Negligence (1995) is equally focused on tales from the Pacific Northwest--ranging from the disorientation of a Seattle aerospace engineer at a Sonics game (Ordinary Computer) to a love story set in the wheat fields of the Palouse (Up on the Block). His new collection returns to the subject matter of his first CD and the artist’s creative origins.

Dahl moved from Seattle to Texas, and during his three years in Austin, he performed in the bars and clubs with his west coast and his Austin bands while writing and recording more than 20 songs about Texas. Some of these were recorded on the albums Whatever the Jungle (1998) and Live by Your Word (2011). Another collection of Texas songs recorded in Austin and mixed in Athens has circulated quietly among friends. It will be released soon as his fourth CD, Three Pawn Shops.

His new album, Lost Illusions, includes eight new recordings produced in the Athens studio of Mark Maxwell and two restored songs recorded live at west coast venues years ago.