Transcendental folk band The Pines will be returning to the Maintenance Shop Saturday night at 9 p.m. David Huckfelt and Benson Ramsey, along with Benson’s younger brother Alex Ramsey form the musical trio.

They are natives of Iowa, and use the expansive midwestern landscape as a breeding ground for their creativity. This creativity led to the inception of the bands latest album, “Above the Prairie,” released Feb. 5, 2016.

The album serves as a conduit for the bands recording mission: to preserve the raw nature of a live performance in a recorded fashion. They recorded the album over three days in Iowa, and the band still tours in proud support of the release, although they have since released extended play Pasture: Volume II.

The songs The Pines pen are all about home, a tribute to the vitality of feeling at home. They want the audience to feel the innocence of youth through their atmospheric and expanded sound while reflecting on the impossibility of ever feeling truly youthful in one’s modern age.

The Pines can express varied levels of emotion through their music because of their approach to song structure. Gentle guitar and drenched synths matching meaningful lyrics make for a very atmospheric sound. This is prominent especially in Above the Prairies opening track “Aerial Ocean”.

The Pines are one of the great creative forces in music today, but what makes the band tick?

One way the band separates itself is their dynamic. No one member has too much ego.

“I mean we have two songwriter-singers and a keyboard player, so were all kind of front men,” said David Huckfelt.

Huckfelt was challenged to name where The Pines draw inspiration from because they draw form a wide range of artists.

“I couldn’t possibly mention them all,” he said. “Anything in realm of American folk, blues, instrumental music, we just try to stay open to everything.”

The Pines also have a unique method.

“We try to leave the process itself as open and spontaneous as possible,” Huckfelt said. “We try to look at every single angle of a song, whether that’s the lyrics, the music, the arrangement, the message or even the feeling. It is pretty much a different process every time we write a song, there is really no one way with us.”

This process allows for lyrics and music to find one another.

“Sometimes a batch of lyrics in the form of a poem needs a melodic home and occasionally it fits a piece of music that just inspires.”

The Pines make sure that each lyric means something without whining or preaching.

“Well you know the first few records we did, we really went deep down into one kind of rabbit hole of writing confessional songs without being too literal, Huckfelt said. “Lyrics are just lines, connector lines, that can sometimes connect people to the outside world, or to a person, or the earth, or the past and future. These are all connectors, and they can come from anywhere.”

Huckfelt had not planned on a life of music, but he had not planned for anything else either.

“Fortunately my family had no real plans for me, and I was just kind of following threads into the people and art that made me live more fully,” he said. “I found that music has a unique way of becoming a flashpoint for how to process experiences, so I was just looking for a way to be a part of something bigger, to be part of someone’s psyche and help them through a day if they need it like music does.”

Tickets are $10 with an ISU ID.