Camille Gerstenhaber

Cait and Winn’s harmonized voices and quirky commentary combined with a mix of Cait Ralph originals and a variety of covers to shape the indie folk duo’s Saturday night show at the Cabin.

Surrounded mostly by a close-knit crowd of friends and family, Cait Ralph and Winn Klocke eased into “For Lack of Better Judgment,” a song Ralph said she wrote to remind herself “not to be held back by the standards (she) sets for herself.”

The covers the duo played ranged from Jason Mraz’s “I’m Yours” to Amy Macdonald’s “This is the Life.”

Ralph frequently repeated the use of peculiar endnotes.

“I always feel the need to justify the end of a song with an uhhh or yeah,” Ralph said during the show, ending the first tune with an unconventional, yet quite comical grunt.

Throughout the performance, Cait and Winn shouted out inside jokes and comments to their comrades offstage. Instead of disengaging the rest of the audience, their witty sense of humor seemed to draw the outsiders in. The peformers’ comfort and lack of apprehension connected them to the viewers on a more personal level.

Amplifying the intimate scene, they dedicated “Roseville Fair” by Staines Bill to Ralph’s parents, who were at the show. It was their wedding song, which added a sentimental aspect to the concert.

During another authentic piece titled “I’m So Bad,” the two flubbed the pitch of the song.

“It’s been a while since we’ve practiced,” Klocke said. “Cait recently got married, so we took some time off.”

Besides a few minor mistakes, which were humorously shrugged off, they sounded in tune.

The two met approximately a year ago under unusual circumstances, which could attribute to their eccentric style of performance.

“I asked Winn to start singing with me after I heard her belt out ‘The Star Spangled Banner’ at a party,” Ralph said.

Since then, they’ve mostly played the bar scene in the La Crosse area and have put out an album, “The Long and Short of It.”

“I have to be in a certain creative mode to write music,” Ralph said. “When I feel passionately about something, the lyrics flow out effortlessly, so I try to stay in the emotion as long as possible.”

While the writing of both the music and lyrics is rather one-sided, Klocke offers an intensely soulful complement to Ralph’s more subtly soothing voice.

Working toward careers quite contrasting from music, both are in their senior years – Ralph for public relations and Klocke for nursing.

They clarified that “music is more of a hobby. We’re just going with the flow of things. But of course, if we were offered a record deal, we’d definitely take it!”