Tag: improvisation

John Mailander’s Improvisational Forecast Says ‘Let The World In’

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Whether or not you know it, you’ve likely heard John Mailander music. Chances are he’s even worked with one (or some) of your favorite artists, from Bruce Hornsby to Billy Strings, Noah Kahan, Joy Williams, Lucy Dacus, Molly Tuttle, and many more.

No disrespect to his work with the Noisemakers (who he’s toured with since 2018), or Strings’ GRAMMY-winning album Home, or any other projects, but it’s Mailander’s original works where his musical wizardry glows brightest. On his latest effort, Let the World In, his abilities are stronger than ever as he combines the influences from everyone he’s worked with into an adventure of orchestral bliss guided by trance-like, open-ended jazzy jams.

Helping Mailander to paint these soundscapes across nine tracks and 35 total minutes of run-time are his longtime band members in Forecast – Ethan Jodziewicz, Chris Lippincott, Mark Raudabaugh, Jake Stargel, David Williford – who he first started playing with during a Nashville residency at Dee’s Country Cocktail Lounge in 2019 to celebrate the release of his debut album of the same name. Through eight instrumental tracks (and a cover of Nick Drake’s “Road”) they send listeners on an introspective journey throughout Let the World In that brings the jazz leaning work of Hornsby and jam-fueled tendencies of Phish together, showing just how far he and Forecast have grown and evolved since first coming together.

“The first record was a blueprint, the second was settling into and discovering who we are, and this record is the most confident statement of who we are,” Mailander tells BGS. “Harmonies, colors, melodic themes, it can all be tied back to the first record in some way.”

Mailander spoke to us ahead of the album’s release about how all of his prior collaborative experiences set the stage for Let the World In to shine, writing on the piano, reality checks from recording, song sequencing, and more.

From your work with Billy Strings and Bruce Hornsby to your own music, you’ve always had a very collaborative way about you and this new record is no exception. What are your thoughts on the significance that played in the process of bringing this album to life?

John Mailander: Collaboration and improvisation are some of the most beautiful parts of being a musician. I love working with the widest variety of artists that I can. It’s a great way to become closer on a human level with the people you’re working with.

Initially, when I was starting this Forecast project, I envisioned it as more of a collective of musicians where we could all bring our own original tunes to the table and improvise freely. However, over time it’s formed into a more regular lineup with the six of us, allowing for the group to grow together as a unit.

Is the album title, Let the World In, meant to be a nod to that collaborative nature and outside influences that loom so large on the project?

Absolutely. The title has a lot of different angles to it. I hesitate to say everything it means to me because I don’t want to put it into too much of a box – I want to leave room for the listener to imagine what it means for them as well. It’s a follow-up to the last record [Look Closer] that we made in isolation during the pandemic.

While that record was very introspective, this new one is much more expansive, because of the world opening up more now and having this constant flood of information coming at us from all directions. It’s an overwhelming time to be alive, so this album feels like a companion piece to the last one, almost like the other side of the coin.

The title track also features the “Let the World In Sound Freedom Expressionists” – Hannah Delynn, Maya de Vitry, Gibb Droll, Ella Korth, Lindsay Lou, and Royal Masat. What was your intention with recruiting them for that one track, and what do you feel they brought to it that it may not have had otherwise?

They are a collection of very dear friends in Nashville who have been there for me in my personal life through a lot. It felt really important to me to credit these friends on the record in some way. That manifested into this collection of sound bites from each of them including poetry, sound effects, singing, and field recordings, which I put together into the sound collage you hear in the track. I love knowing that all of their voices are in there. I hope with each listen you can tune into different elements of it and hear new things.

In terms of outside influences on the record, I know Bruce Hornsby played a big role. What tricks and lessons from him did you implement into these songs?

Bruce is one of my greatest teachers. He’s been really encouraging over the past few years to pursue this project, grow into a band leader, and becoming more confident on the piano. I’m very rudimentary, but I’ve become obsessed with learning the piano recently, in large part thanks to Bruce and watching him play it so much. Everything on this record – except for the cover, “Road,” and the improvisational tracks – were ones I wrote on the piano, which was a huge change in direction for me.

I’ve also tried to incorporate elements of how he leads a band, like having dueling conversational solos rather than individual ones or weaving in and out of and finishing each other’s lines, into what we do with the Forecast as well.

Process-wise, how did the construction of these songs on the piano differ from when you’re composing on fiddle?

Going back to the title of this record, the piano gave it a wider scope compositionally for me, because I was thinking a lot more about bass lines and counter melodies and other things that as a fiddle player aren’t as prevalent. With the fiddle I think much more melodically – it’s kind of the top voice – which makes it harder for me to compose that way because even though it’s my primary instrument it’s hard to get a full picture with it. On the piano it felt more like writing for an entire ensemble rather than just writing a melody in chords.

You ended up knocking out the recording for this album during four consecutive days last year. What was it like doing it all rapid-fire like that compared to the more conventional, slow and steady approach?

It was intense, and we even recorded more than just what made it on the record. A lot of the work in post [production], for me, has been crafting everything we recorded into something that tells a story, which would’ve been tough to do across multiple sessions with the band over time, given that they’re all touring musicians as well. It felt good getting together with everyone from basically 10 to 6 every day and working our butts off as much as we could. It was the most concentrated and focused time we’ve ever had together as a band, as well as a reality check about things in the band we needed to work on.

It’s like putting a microscope on everything because we’ve been playing live at Dee’s every month for a few years, but now we’re in this hyper-focused environment where we can hear and analyze every minor detail. It opened up a lot of rabbit holes that I ended up going down later, but I think we really grew as a band through the process of making it this way.

You mentioned the time being a reality check for what you needed to work on as a band. What were some of those things?

It was like putting a microscope on how the particular instrumentation and individual voices on our instruments really blend and work together, revealing sonic and dynamic things that worked or not. It revealed some habits we’d gotten into through playing live that we discovered didn’t always translate to a record. The sessions were an awesome and intensive way to grow as a unit.

You’ve produced all of the Forecast records thus far. Is that something you plan to continue doing in the future?

Actually, the next record we do I’d like to have another producer. I love producing, but I’m realizing that for my own music I’d like to get another perspective in the room next time we do it. It’s really tough taking on both of those roles, but I’m really proud of what we did and grateful for producing it again this time around.

One of my favorite elements of the record is how well the songs flow from one into another – if listened through in order it presents almost as one long, 35-minute track. Tell me about sequencing this record and the importance for listeners to digest the full project from start to finish?

I’ve always been a nerd about sequencing records. I think it’s a really important part of the experience of listening to music. With this one I put a lot more attention into connecting the tracks. Some of them blend into one another, which is something that my mastering engineer Wayne Pooley – who I know through the Bruce Hornsby world – and I spent countless time laboring over the microseconds between every track to make sure each one hits you in a very intentional way.

Only one track on the album has lyrics – your cover of Nick Drake’s “Road.” Why’d you choose it, and what do you feel it contributes to the overall narrative you’re striving to present on the record?

[Nick’s] been a huge inspiration for years. Even as more of an instrumentalist I’ve always been drawn to his writing. But in terms of that song, I’ve known it for a while and love the entire record it’s on, Pink Man. About a year and a half ago – just before work on Let the World In began – I brought the song to the band. Nick Drake’s version is around two minutes long, but I thought it would be cool to use the song as a tool with our band to improvise and jam like we do at our live shows. We did just that by stretching it out to over nine minutes long. Lyrically it fits with the themes on the rest of the record, but it’s not heavy-handed either. It’s still open to interpretation, which is what I really value in it.

Initially I thought about having a guest vocalist on it, because on our last record we had a couple guest singers. But as we got closer and closer to the studio sessions I realized that it was important for me to sing this one myself, and I’m really proud with how it turned out.

If you could collaborate or have a jam session with any musician past or present, who would it be?

My hero, Trey Anastasio. It would be a dream to play or collaborate with him someday.

What has music, specifically when it comes to the creation process for Let the World In, taught you about yourself?

It’s allowed me to connect with my bandmates on a deeper level than I know how to do any other way. Through that I’m able to tap into those energies that exist between us as people, which is a type of connection I practice and strive to achieve every day.

Photo Credit: Michael Weintrob

Combining Classical and Bluegrass, Scroggins & Rose Improvise and Inspire on ‘Speranza’

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Acutely expressive, profoundly innovative, and ceaselessly gripping, Scroggins & Rose are masters of sonic storytelling. The project consists of Alisa Rose (violin) and Tristan Scroggins (mandolin), both virtuosic talents with a sprawling list of credits each in their own right. While Scroggins primarily forays in the bluegrass sphere and Rose spent her musical upbringing largely studying classical music, the two alchemize a blend of genres to achieve their distinct style.

The duo’s third collection, Speranza, relays a moving dialogue between fiddle and mandolin, drawing upon a diverse range of musical influences to weave together a thoughtful assortment of colors and textures. Initial ideas for the project began back in the quarantine days of 2020, and Speranza – which consists of six immersive instrumentals, a dynamic assortment of original and familiar tunes – now arrives nearly five years later in a moment where its intonations of hope feel just as crucial.

BGS had the pleasure of sitting down with Scroggins & Rose to discuss their origins, influences, and the percolation of their most recent release.

Congratulations on the album release! To start us off, could you talk about how the two of you came into playing together?

Alisa Rose: We both taught at NimbleFingers, which is a camp in British Columbia.

Tristan Scroggins: It’s a bluegrass week of workshops that has been going on for a couple decades. I always describe it on stage as “sleepaway camp for adults who want to learn how to play the banjo and drink.”

AR: There’s a really nice feel at that camp. Tristan was in a band with his dad at the time, so I did some shows with them there. Then one night, I remember the two of us improvising by a picnic table and we just had a really nice musical chemistry where we follow each other’s ideas around. Immediately it felt like, “Oh, this is a good musical fit.”

TS: At that time I was playing with my dad in Jeff Scroggins & Colorado, and we were touring full-time. So I just ended up in California a lot and I would tack on extra time to come hang out with Alisa. And we started writing music and playing shows. I live in Nashville now, so these days it’s more of a deliberate effort when I come out to collaborate.

At this point you’ve been able to flesh out that musical chemistry over the course of three collections. What would you say unites your musicality or differentiates it?

AR: I think when we improvise, it’s playful and creative and experimental – we’re not afraid to leave what may be reasonable behind, and sometimes that takes us to good places, and sometimes we fall on our faces. We also have a similar sense of rhythm and how we respond to it. It allows us to improvise freely because we feel rhythm in the same way. So that’s where we unify, but we have really different musical backgrounds.

Could you tell me more about that?

AR: Sure. Growing up I played a little bit of fiddle, but mostly I grew up in the classical world. I was a Suzuki kid, so I learned by ear initially, which I think has allowed me to play a lot of different music, but I was learning primarily classical violin growing up. Tristan grew up very much in the bluegrass world, and I’ve studied bluegrass and I’ve played in bluegrass bands, but I still have a different sense of melody and expressiveness. I think a lot about how to make music really expressive emotionally and I play with timings – those two things are less common in the bluegrass world.

TS: I think it’s been really valuable for me, generally musically and especially in the context of this project, to be exposed to those different ways of thinking about playing. I grew up playing with my dad, and in mandolin contests just learning how to play bluegrass, which does instigate this question of, is bluegrass expressive or not? I think it is sort of, but it’s so different from how classical music is expressive or how jazz is expressive. I’ve had to work a lot on navigating that challenge, because for me, I didn’t go to school at all for music. So much of how I play is very instinctual and this project often has me figuring out how to adapt those instincts in order to have more options, especially since there’s just two of us. We have to really be on the same page a lot of the time and work together to fill in spaces or leave holes where we want them to be – they have to line up, and it’s really obvious if they don’t.

Speranza does an excellent job at combining those classical and bluegrass sensibilities to achieve expression while still leaning into roots-like melodies. Can you tell me about the impetus behind your latest release? What drove you to create this third collection?

AR: So our first collection, Grana, was very improvised and we were a new duo. Basically we set out to make a demo – we wanted to record, like, three tunes and get some gigs. We got an Airbnb, rented some recording equipment, had our awesome engineer friend set it up for us, and we just hit record over and over for a weekend. By the end it seemed like it was an album, so that’s how that one came to be. Very improvised, very sort of exploratory. There were like 1000 takes of everything. Well, not actually 1000 because we didn’t have that long, but there was definitely a sort of trial and error of figuring out what we wanted to create.

And then for the second album, Curios, we worked out everything. We rearranged everything and really sought to emphasize the strength of melodies. A lot of that album was about making the melodies come out. To me, it’s also an exploration of different sound colors. We worked with Wes Corbett on that one and he helped bring that out in that album. We really tried to shape each tune into a little story, so they’re more composed. Some have solo sections, but they’re more like little pieces and arches – I mean, I would call them miniatures, but really they’re sort of standard length for bluegrass. In the classical world they might be considered miniatures– little, crafted, sparkly gems.

But we put [Curios] out in the pandemic, which was very anticlimactic. We were supposed to have a release tour and we worked really hard on that album for a long time. We had received a great grant from FreshGrass and were able to do a lot of things in the way we wanted. We worked with Dave Sinko as our engineer, who was awesome, and recorded in this pretty church in Nashville with Egyptian stained glass.

So the third one, Speranza, is more organic. We’ve grown as a duo in terms of creating, so we decided that instead of writing a whole record of stuff we would write and record as we went, or write and improvise as we went, and do some of both. So I believe this album combines the freedom of the first album and the shape and craft of the second album. And the material for Speranza came out of the pandemic – that was such a crazy time. Life seems sort of normal now, but a lot of the tunes started in that time and then we finished them once we could get back together.

TS: I think that in a lot of ways Speranza feels very shaped by the reality of the pandemic, 2020, things getting shut down – the first stuff that we worked on remotely, because we had to. It feels wild that we’ve been working on this for years now. It’s funny, similarly to the pandemic, it doesn’t feel like that was five years ago. We recorded it over different sessions and then mixed it over different sessions.

AR: “Pandemic Buddy” and “Reaper” are the darkest ones – those I did write in like that first month of the pandemic, but I just came up with the beginning idea and then as a duo, over two or three or four visits, we finished writing the pieces together. We’re often coming up with ideas, kind of sitting with them, and then recording voice memos and listening to them. It takes us a fair amount of time to do it and we really flesh out the arrangement and how our parts fit together in person. That tends to be pretty time-intensive. Basically we’re writing the pieces, but we’re memorizing them at the same time, with space for improv – everything is fluid, but the basic composition is pretty worked out. So our compositional process is pretty spacious and lengthy.

What was inspiring you during the composition of these pieces? Any art that you were ingesting or other cultural touchstones of during that moment?

AR: In the beginning of the pandemic, Tristan did a tune challenge, which is where some of these songs started. There was a word prompt every day to write a tune about. For example, “Reaper” began with the prompt “death.” “Pandemic Buddy” was for the prompt “friend.” It was a really nice way to channel energy at the beginning of the pandemic, when everything was crazy. I spent hours every day writing these tunes and trying to get a good video, and I think I got a little better at them as I went.

TS: I mean, it’s sort of an obvious one, but we talk a lot about Mike Marshall and Darol Anger. It’s the same mando and violin pairing, but I love listening to them and listening to other people who do this kind of new acoustic music/composing. I spend a lot of time in Nashville with Wes Corbett. Wes produced our second album, but he’s also a friend of mine, and I helped him with publicity for his first album, which has a lot of really beautifully written instrumental pieces.

It’s interesting – we spent so much time working on this in chunks and that was a very different part of my brain than the part of that was working very hard on, like, Texas-style fiddle tunes. Those weren’t crossing over, exactly. I think rather than being influenced by something specific, it’s more that I try to cultivate something within myself by listening to both stuff I like and new stuff. Absorbing all of that, letting it ferment inside, and then figuring out how to express that all together, rather than trying to emulate any one thing.

AR: I tend to think that when composing, everything you’ve ever listened to, everything that ever resonated with you and definitely anything you’ve ever played with your body or had in your body – whether you danced to it, or you physically played it – is a part of your musical sensibility. I don’t know what I was listening to when I was writing these tunes, but I definitely love Darol Anger and Mike Marshall. I also love Schubert string quartets, I love Beethoven piano sonatas, and I love Debussy piano music – I love a lot of different kinds of music, and I think all of that is part of what comes out. That’s all part of what’s in my head when I’m conceiving of new material.

Photo Credit: Lenny Gonzalez

What’s the Magical Chemistry Behind Twisted Pine? It’s ‘Love Your Mind’

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Love Your Mind, the new album from Boston/Toronto-based band Twisted Pine, is a delicious exploration of joy, growth, and self-love, packaged into tight grooves and soulful vocals. The quartet – which features Dan Bui, Kathleen Parks, Anh Phung, and Chris Sartori – is beloved for its genre-bending approach to acoustic music; they continue to defy expectations with their mandolin, fiddle, flute, and bass instrumentation.

What I noticed most about this new record, besides its refreshing positivity (in this economy?!), was the seamlessly collaborative sound. In discussing this in a BGS interview with the entire band, they explained that they’ve taken these past years to hone their collective voice as a group. With this new album, they felt that they had found that voice.

Together, we all agreed that the name “Twisted Mind(s)” might be more appropriate for the band at this point. Below is our conversation, where we cover Love Your Mind and the joy within it, the inspirations found in jamming, how flute fits in at bluegrass festivals, and so much more.

I love the amount of joy and uplift that comes through this album; it’s rare among Americana albums in this day and age. Is that feeling something that the band gravitates to organically? Or was it a choice you made specifically about this project?

Kathleen Parks: I think that happened pretty organically. Some of the songs started coming out of the post-COVID era. “After Midnight,” for example, was written after the first Ossipee [Valley Music] Festival in person after the pandemic and I tried to capture the joyful feeling of being around each other again. … Some of the album started in that appreciative state.

Dan Bui: I would add that throughout the album some subjects are a little bit more somber – there’s a theme of personal growth and learning through hardship and dealing with things like anxiety, making mistakes, and learning from them – but it’s always viewed through a positive lens, and musically, certainly, it is more of an upbeat fun vibe. That’s what we try to put out into the world and bring to our shows in general.

I love that song, “After Midnight (Nothing Good Happens).” Can you tell me more about that one?

KP: I was deciding not to party one night and [was] walking to my tent … listening to the roar of fiddle tunes and good times being had. I was like, “Oh my god that sounds so fun, but I also have two sets to play tomorrow.” My dad used to say that title phrase to me as a kid. He was also a musician who toured a lot so I always thought, “Cool people stay up super late.” My dad was like, “No, nothing good happens after midnight.”

Your fans have been starving for a new Twisted Pine record. What have you all been working on in the four years since your last release?

DB: Releasing our last record [Right Now] in 2020 was a huge challenge. We had to pivot and we weren’t able to do what we wanted to do, performance-wise, for a couple of years. So by the time we were able to get out there, we kind of went “all in” on touring and working on our live show. Before the pandemic, we had only really been playing with Anh for a short time, about six months. Since she lives in Canada, it was impossible to get together in person for a very long time.

Chris Sartori: Even getting into the studio with Anh for Right Now, it felt like we were just starting to figure out how that might work. These past couple of years have been really about ironing out the sound we had envisioned as a quartet and getting it to a place where we could write for that sound.

Anh Phung: It felt like with the 2020 record I was injected into a band that already existed, but Love Your Mind came from a place of more foundational collaboration. I was truly a part of the band before we got in there and recorded.

KP: I also feel like on this new album we had more time to discuss, “How do we want this song to sound?” We brought in players like Ethan Robbins, Ali McGuirk – just because we could. We had time and space and we weren’t being rushed into anything.

I also wanted to ask you about the “A Beautiful Phase (90’s Song).” Is it a ’90s song to you? Or is it just referencing nostalgia for the ’90s as “a beautiful phase”?

KP: For some reason, it ended up in the voice memos with that title. For me sonically, it very much has a “Bitter Sweet Symphony” vibe and I always see chrome when I sing it – that really, really specific blue chrome color, which I remember as a child.

Yes! I had that nail polish!

KP: Yep. It’s kind of looking back on a younger self, talking to a younger self. … For me, it’s about the missed opportunities with being a musician. You miss a lot of time with your family or family events [and] the song is almost apologizing for that.

DB: That song was one of the more collaborative ones. We had these early writing sessions at Kathleen’s where we got together and just jammed to see what came out. … There was this one section that turned into the chorus of that song. At one point, Chris and I were sitting around and decided, “Let’s just build this around this moody section.” We worked with that and kind of introduced a verse and this idea of having it modulate to a bunch of different keys. We roughed out a structure and that was what the lyrics were written over. When we went into the studio it was fresh – a lot of choices were happening in real time. It was cool to have it just come together like that.

Do you write a lot from jamming?

KP: It is a mix of jamming and melodic ideas. The final product is usually the outcome of playing the song down with a lot of different grooves and ideas, seeing what fits, and what we can pull off.

DB: One example is “Green Flash.” Kathleen was playing this 12-string electric guitar and this melodic idea kind of popped out and we decided to make something out of that sound.

That song also features Jerry Douglas. How did that happen?

KP: We had seen him at Earl Scruggs Music Festival and he said, “If there’s any way I can help, just let me know…” So, when that song started coming together, we were like, “We should ask Jerry to be on this!” In the studio we made this video asking if he would play on this song and sent it to him – and he said sure!

AP: Jerry has the exact style for it. I feel like the tune has the vibe of Strength In Numbers, so he fits perfectly.

OK, this question is specifically for Anh: What has your experience been like being the “flutist at the bluegrass festival?”

AP: Honestly, by the time I was playing with Twisted Pine, it was a pretty soft landing, because a lot of the work building my credibility in the scene came before that. Even going to IBMA, I was expecting a lot of pushback, but it has been pretty shocking how welcoming people have been. I think the initial expectation was pretty low. People were skeptical of how I, playing a flute, would work within this band, so when they hear it and it’s going well, it has even more of an effect!

Can you tell me about the actual recording of the album?

DB: I think a big part of the sound of the record should be credited to our co-producer, Dan Cardinal. We have worked with Dan on every record that we’ve done and he’s just someone who understands what we’re going for. He does a great job at capturing the organic sound of our instruments, but is also very creative and able to augment the sounds of our band … subtly and sometimes not so subtly. His choices make the recording sound a little bit bigger, wider and deeper. He was really valuable in that way. A lot of the songs were new, still being worked out, and he had some great third party observations.

KP: He’s good at placing sounds so that you feel them, but you’re not suddenly met with this random out-of-place soundscape in an otherwise acoustic recording.

That’s something I loved about the record. Even though you’re genre-bending, the sound is still so acoustic, where I imagine it would have been easy to add drums and synths, etc. Were there specific records you were referencing for production?

CS: I think each track has its own inspiration. Like “Start/Stop” is very Motown, “Chanel Perfume” is going more for an Aretha “Rock Steady” thing; each track we approached as kind of its own world.

Okay, last question, what does the title, Love Your Mind, mean to you?

CS: That sort of reared its head after we were finished recording and [after] looking back at what themes had emerged. We kind of identified that as a common thread that ties the record together, even though sonically it goes in all of these directions.

KP: For me, it means that whatever state you’re in – dark or frantic – you have to just try to look at yourself from someone else’s point of view and love yourself completely through all the stages.

AP: This is kind of riffing on a different idea, but I also think of Love Your Mind as – it’s common knowledge that our band has been hard to identify genre-wise, and I think that even though this album has a mixture of genres the sound that came out of this album is kind of unified in the way that the four of us play together. Twisted Pine is the four of our minds together, so the magical chemistry is loving our minds.

(Editor’s Note: Want more Twisted Pine? Check out our Basic Folk episode on the group featuring an exclusive interview with fiddler Kathleen Parks. Listen and subscribe here.)

Photo Credit: Jo Chattman

Guitarist Jackie Venson on Her Instrumental Peer, Yasmin Williams

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

(Editor’s Note: For a special Artist of the Month feature and op-ed, acclaimed guitarist, composer, and improviser Jackie Venson considers the impact, musicality, and originality of her peer Yasmin Williams. Read more about Venson on BGS here. Explore more AOTM content on Williams here.)

As someone who gets pigeonholed as a blues guitarist, I’ve publicly reckoned with what I feel is an othering of blues as no longer really art, but instead what might be seen as a wax museum-ification of a formerly revolutionary genre. Too many established musicians and fans alike don’t want blues to evolve, but to instead be preserved in amber. Yet, its sibling folk music has not only never entirely fallen out of fashion, it has evolved and even prospered specifically because its brightest figures have refused to let tradition and academic codification stagnate the genre. Whether you’re talking about Bob Dylan going electric or Bon Iver collaborating with hip-hop superstars, folk musicians understand that cross pollination and new ideas are vital to growth. To my ears, Yasmin Williams is a proud continuation of that tradition of evolving folk.

To listen to the music of Yasmin Williams is to listen to the thrill of musical mutation in action, to hear and feel playing that is in constant communication, not only with itself, but with myriad styles and personalities. Given how adventurous and playful Williams’ music is, it’s not too surprising that her gateway to music was in fact a video game, specifically Guitar Hero 2.

In a review of Williams’ breakout 2021 album Urban Driftwood for taste-making music site Pitchfork, writer Sam Sodomsky connected Williams’ percussive, tap-heavy fingerpicking style to the mechanics of that game, as well as folk guitar legend John Fahey. Rhythmic intensity and love for the thrill of performance are the unifying elements of Williams’ otherwise impossible-to-pin-down style; this isn’t folk as a study or stuffy examination of tradition, it’s folk as expression at its most pure, music for entertainment, communication, and friendly competition all at once.

Williams’ latest batch of singles from her just-released album, Acadia, impeccably illustrates this eclectic and freewheeling approach to folk. “Hummingbird” is a dazzling collaboration with banjo player Allison de Groot and fiddle phenom Tatiana Hargreaves that recalls Richard Thompson’s lush, melodic picking but marries it to the breakneck intensity of traditional bluegrass.

On the other end of the folk spectrum, “Virga” finds Williams teaming up with Darlingside for a gorgeous and stately slice of indie folk that would fit right in with the likes of Sufjan Stevens and Bibio. Somewhere in the middle is “Dawning,” a bluesy folk number that features Williams dueting on guitar with Aoife O’Donovan of Crooked Still fame, who also provides enchanting, wordless vocals that give the song an almost ambient quality, as if Sigur Rós moved to Appalachia.

Even on songs that are more traditional, Williams playfully inserts pop and experimental elements. Take “Sunshowers,” which opens Urban Driftwood with beautiful fingerpicking that in turn gives way to a simple yet addictive bass-like hook that wouldn’t be out of place on a Post Malone single. Or, consider the album’s title track, which features djembe playing by Amadou Kouaye and adds an almost IDM (Intelligent Dance Music) quality to the song. Or, “Nova to Ba,” a collaboration with Argentine musician Dobrotto that effortlessly transitions from cinematic grandeur to relaxing ambient textures.

As a musician, I can’t help but be entranced by the marvelous skill and tone on display in Williams’ music. But more importantly, as a listener, I’m struck by the immediacy and tunefulness of the songs. Like Williams’ early inspiration, Guitar Hero 2, these songs are hard to put down once you start, and the difficulty never gets in the way of the fun.

“Juvenescence,” one of Williams’ most popular songs, is a handy representation of her skills – the impeccable picking, the daredevil runs that would impress even Eddie van Halen, the self-dueting in the finale. But it’s also immensely listenable and never a chore. Equally impressive is “Swift Breeze,” where Williams utilizes her guitar as an organic drum machine, getting a booming kick drum sound out of the body and rim shot-like hits out of other components, all while arpeggiating like she just got off a tour as the lead guitarist for a Midwest emo outfit.

It might seem odd to bring up emo in a feature on a folk musician, but there is a considerable amount of drama and theatricality in Williams’ music, even though most of it is instrumental. “Adrift,” in particular, has just as many emotional pivots and anthemic hooks as a Panic! At The Disco song. Here, the guitar comes in first, then the strings, but the swaggering hooks and melancholic valleys are there. It’s not hard to reimagine “Restless Heart,” from Williams’ debut album, Unwind, as an emo anthem either; it has a killer riff to kick things off followed by a pick slide and some heavy ringing chords. Even the title sounds like something the Get Up Kids would have used. If Dashboard Confessional was ever looking for their own Tim Reynolds to do an acoustic tour with, all I’m saying is Williams’ name should be high up on the list.

Every genre should be so fortunate as to have an artist like Williams, a performer who challenges herself without losing sight of what makes music a pleasure to listen to. A musician who commits to pushing the boundaries of the genre they call home, rather than maintaining a status quo. No genre should be inflexible and we need more musicians like Williams – period – who push themselves musically just as much as they do technically.

(Editor’s Note: Continue your Yasmin Williams Artist of the Month exploration here.)

Photo Credit: Ebru Yildiz

Fiddles In Conversation: Brittany Haas & Lena Jonsson on Their New Album, ‘The Snake’

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Behold, fiddle nerds! There is a new foundational collection of tunes to sink your teeth into, from two of the foremost fiddle players in Swedish and American traditions. Brittany Haas (Nashville) and Lena Jonsson (Stockholm), are award winning instrumentalists and have been long time collaborators and friends. The duo recently released their second recording together, and their first in nearly 10 years. The Snake explores old-time and Swedish fiddle traditions with finesse and subtlety, but is even more ambitious in scope than their first, self-titled record.

As part of the new collection, Jonsson and Haas composed a three-part suite for two fiddles, made up of entirely original material, but inspired by the format and musical stylings of J.S. Bach. Over a video call between Nashville, New York, and Sweden, we discussed how to stay inspired on the fiddle, what guides their accompaniment choices, and what records folks should start with if they want to learn more about Swedish fiddle and folk music.

We’ve put together a playlist of their recommendations at the bottom of this piece.

Okay, this is a weird place to start, but I noticed a distinct lack of chopping on this album. Was that intentional? I mean as someone who played in a two fiddle format a lot, you only have so many options for how to arrange. Were you like, “WE WILL NOT CHOP” on this record?

Brittany Haas: [Laughs] Honestly, I didn’t even think about it! But you’re right, I think maybe there’s just a little bit of chop on “10 Days of Isolation?” And maybe, Lena, did you chop on “Fiddle Claw?”

Lena Jonsson: I mean, maybe I kind of chopped! I can’t really chop. I think part of it is that for Swedish tunes, chopping doesn’t feel as natural. It isn’t really in the tradition, so it wouldn’t be a “go to” choice. It would more be an option if you wanted to do something really different sounding.

BH: Yeah, in Swedish fiddle music, the most common way that fiddles play together is in harmony, but the harmonies are way more diverse than in American traditions. The Swedish harmonies are all over the place, you call it second voice I think.

Totally. And considering that the options are so open ended for harmony, how do you decide where to go with it?

BH: I think I’ve just heard it done a lot, and often the second voices will be lower, being more fluid with direction and rhythm. So when I’m playing with Lena, she will play under me, and then I don’t want to do the exactly same thing, so I might try and play something above her to explore and change it up.

LJ: The harmony above is really unusual in Swedish music, but now that I’ve heard Brit do it so much, I’ve started to do it and it sounds really cool, I love it!

BH: Because we’re just the two of us and because we are coming out of a heavily Swedish tradition on this record, the harmony is not so chordally rooted, it’s much more based on the melody and the implied chords can change completely from repeat to repeat.

That’s super interesting! So in Swedish music, what would the main chordal instruments be?

LJ: The chordal instrument would be guitar, accordion, cittern, or mandolin, an example is the band Dreamers’ Circus. But also, it’s a relatively new idea to play backup chords for fiddle tunes, so folks are always experimenting with how to do back up, but finding interesting ways to play it is always cool. For some tunes, it’s just really hard to define what are the chords are, especially with the the older tunes, the melody can be really open. So when you’re in a jam it can be very confusing, chordal instruments could be playing all completely different chords over the same tune. [Laughs]

Would it be fair to say that the Swedish tradition is very centered around the fiddle, and everything else is auxiliary?

LJ: Yes, I would say so.

You both have done a lot of playing in the old-time and Swedish traditions. In melding these two styles, I’m curious how you find a groove together? To me, these styles can traditionally land quite differently rhythmically, but it seems to be seamless between the two of you?

BH: My sense of that is that it happens pretty naturally and I think that the reason why we’re here, playing together, is because we naturally line up together on a groove.

LJ: I agree, I think that’s interesting too, to not be so decision oriented, to not say, “This tune should be traditionally this way,” or “That tune should be traditionally that way.” It’s more interesting to find the meeting of the two genres as it happens naturally.

BH: Over the years of knowing each other and playing together, we’ve probably come together groove-wise by teaching each other tunes, etc.

Of course, that makes sense. You’re learning each other’s groove within the tunes you’re learning from one another.

I wanted to ask you, there’s a really interesting series on the record called “Låt efter Back,” which is a three part composition, divided into Vals, Visa, and Polska, Can you tell me about it?

LJ: Yes! Well, I went to Nashville in March a few years ago to just visit and play tunes in Britt’s house, we didn’t have a plan to make an album. We started jamming and playing and writing typical tunes that we would write. But then, we decided to have a challenge, to write something in the style of Bach – and we wanted to write it in two fiddle parts at the same time, kind of inspired by the Bach double, so that the two parts are equal voice. It was fun but so hard, I mean much harder than the writing of a typical fiddle tune.

So, in writing this, were you through-composing it? Or were you creating a basic structure and then improvising around it.

BH: Somewhere in between, I think. I mean, sometimes we were improvising the harmony, but then that became how it went.

LJ: Yeah, because there’s long notes in the melody. You wouldn’t have those long notes in a regular fiddle tune, and it left room for another melody to come from the other part. I remember having the sheet music out, we were writing it out in front of us, and then moving things around, taking sections from here and there.

In using Bach as an inspiration, did you take any actual melodies from his work or were you just using stylistic inspiration?

BH: More the style, but we did examine it closely. Like checking out, “Where would he typically repeat a section? When do you move on from one idea?” So we were referencing it a lot.

LJ: Also, we looked at how the movements relate to each other – one fast, one slow, one medium – but we wrote it as a mix of that influence and our own, so that it would still have a part of fiddle music in it. I remember when we were on tour, there was a lady in Norwich who was a Baroque musician, and she thought it was inspiring to hear a Bach-influenced piece being played like dance music.

Yes, it’s like bringing “historical performance” full circle into the living tradition of fiddle music, which is in a way also historical performance.

Speaking of historical, it’s been some years since you two last recorded an album together. What inspired you to make this recording now?

BH: Well, we had both been doing different work for a while. I’m mainly in collaborative settings and not necessarily writing a bunch of music on my own, so it’s helpful to have someone who is really good at being creative to show up and bring me into that space. It’s really fun and I think easier than a lot of co-writing settings I’ve been in. This one is very fun and explorative.

LJ: This record was also easier, because there wasn’t a clear plan, like “We are gonna make an album.” It was kind of like, “Let’s see what happens.” I think that also opens up the creative space, because you don’t have pressure. You just want to find music that’s good and fun to play, and sounds nice. I think a lot of the time in the writing process, if it feels good to play, if it feels good on the instrument, then that’s a good indication that it’s a successful composition.

You two have both been playing fiddle music for a long time now. And as someone who struggles in my own relationship to the instrument, I’m curious how you stay inspired by the fiddle?

LJ: I’m super inspired by Brittany’s playing and in playing with her I learn so much and become a better fiddle player, so that’s a great way to stay inspired – and also a reason to do this project.

BH: I feel the same about Lena, I do think that seeing what someone else is doing is kind of the best resource for inspiration. Like, “Oh, there’s someone else doing it different than me, but it’s really cool, how does that work?”

LJ: Also, Instagram can actually be a source of inspiration, just checking out what everyone is playing and also listening to other styles of music, like classical music. Sometimes I work on a classical piece that’s really hard just to challenge myself. I don’t perform classical music, so it’s kind of disconnected from work and I don’t have to feel that I’m gonna perform it. It’s just there for me to grow and take inspiration from.

Here in the states, I think I understand where the fiddle as an instrument and fiddle music falls in the popular psyche. Of course there’s the nerds like me who go to fiddle camp, and the festivals like Clifftop that have their own entire subculture, but the general public also knows what fiddle music is as something that happens at barn dances or square dances and in their favorite country songs. They know of Charlie Daniels, and Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? And the fiddle licks in “Wagon Wheel” or Dave Matthews Band. I’m curious what relationship fiddle music has to pop culture in Sweden?

LJ: That’s a really interesting question. It’s definitely a sub-culture, but people know primarily of the fiddle players and dancers at Midsommar celebration, so everyone knows about that. But a lot of people don’t know that there are fiddle festivals and Swedish folk music, unless you’re from an area where there are fiddlers and more of a strong tradition. But there are some artists that break through a little bit, like Sara Parkman, who is a pop artist but will play a fiddle tune in the middle of her set.

But, at school for example, being a fiddle player is not “cool?”

LJ: [Laughs] definitely not. I mean some people come to school a little early just so they can hide their fiddle case away so nobody will see!

Well that feels pretty universal! Thank you both so much for your time and this wonderful album!

Photo Credit: Douglas Robertson

LISTEN: Chick Corea & Béla Fleck, “Remembrance”

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Artist: Chick Corea & Béla Fleck
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “Remembrance”
Album: Remembrance
Release Date: May 10, 2024
Label: Béla Fleck Productions (Thirty Tigers)

In Their Words: “’Remembrance’ is just one of those perfect Chick Corea tunes. It sounds to me like a New Orleans funeral march, even though it has a Latin component, like everything he did tended to.”  – Béla Fleck

Photos by C. Taylor Cruthers and Taylor Cottrell

Maya de Vitry & Ethan Jodziewicz are Seriously Playful on Basic Folk

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

Songwriter Maya de Vitry and bassist Ethan Jodziewicz come to their partnership with an understanding for their chosen lifestyle and a creative playfulness that enhances their connection. While Maya’s roots are firmly planted in folk music, Ethan brings classical music and improvisation to the table. They’ve been collaborating together since Maya’s post-Stray Birds solo career, which launched in early 2019 with her record, Adaptations. Fast forward to 2023, they are back alongside Joel Timmons and Hannah Delynn with the fabulous new EP, Infinite. For the first time in years, Maya is back on the road, while Ethan has been touring basically non-stop with musicians like Aoife O’Donovan, Sierra Hull, and Lindsay Lou. In our conversation, they talk about how it’s helpful to be in a relationship with someone who is also deeply committed to a musician’s lifestyle while understanding when someone needs a break.

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Maya also reflects on her current state of being within her body and how she has trouble recognizing physical pain to the point where she can’t move. She talks of the realization that she had the tendency to tense up when picking up a guitar and how that was because she felt like she didn’t belong. Ethan and Maya share their observations on working within a boundary. Ethan laments that he often works within a boundary with improvisation while Maya speaks of placing limitations around touring and performing live shows. We end this insightful interview with Maya revealing celebrity sightings are her Nashville Starbucks and a very fun Lightning Round called “Which One.”

Photo Credit: Maya de Vitry by Kaitlyn Raitz; Ethan Jodziewicz by Lily Smith

Cover Story: Brittany and Natalie Haas on Sharing Melody, Rhythm, and Space

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

What changes about the oft championed phenomenon of “family harmonies” when the voices entwined together are not voices at all, but strings, plucked and bowed and fingered? It’s a question that immediately comes to mind as you hear the first notes of Haas, the recent duo album released by sisters, fiddler Brittany Haas and cellist Natalie Haas. It’s also a question that immediately came to mind as we chatted via Zoom last month.

“I feel like I connect more deeply with Brittany than anyone else from a rhythmic standpoint,” Natalie responds after a thoughtful pause. “That’s not so much the family harmony thing, but it does play into everything.”

The familial blend they’ve established as adults – in many ways, Haas is their first deliberate and intentional music making as a pair since their teen years – defies any and all boundaries and language, as they swap melodic hooks and call and respond and toggle between accompanying and leading, adding texture and tenderness or vigor and enthusiasm. Their interplay is as comfortable and cozy as you would expect these two sibling virtuosos to be together, their reunion the not-so-subtle underpinning that makes the entire collection of tunes and sets sparkle.

This is family harmony – and family rhythm – but unspooled, complicated, and set to a new acoustic, Celtic, chambergrass sound that defies categorization. Haas also gently and kindly stands in implied opposition to more masculine, performative, and competitive musicians and groups in similar spaces. It’s a brilliant, crave-able album that showcases how much can be accomplished musically when one’s goal isn’t just the cooperative music one creates, but the space one opens up with another in which you cultivate that cooperative music.

I wanted to start by just asking y’all how long it’s been since you put out music together, or since you’ve been in like a creative space together? How does it feel to be “reunited” in this way?

Natalie Haas: We sort of played together as kids in chamber music groups and youth symphony together. And we went to fiddle camps together – that was how we got excited about maybe doing music as a career. That would sort of continue throughout the year, because the way for us to continue all that excitement and motivation that we got at fiddle camps was for us to play together.

We did the odd gig together as teenagers, like farmers markets, school performances, and that kind of thing. Then we sort of went our separate ways and we’re both very busy doing our own thing, but we took every chance we got when other people would hire both of us to be on their gigs. We always said yes because we just wanted to hang out with each other. So this is like the first time that we’ve done anything like this and it’s pretty exciting.

The way that your musical paths have diverged, they don’t feel like they’re that separate from each other. It feels like the vocabulary that you both draw from is very similar. When you started sitting down to think about doing an album together, what changed about the way that you thought about music separately or together? 

Brittany Haas: That’s a cool question. I think, it all felt kind of new in a way, but also so familiar, you know? Because it’s us. We have made a lot of music together. I think on my side, it was really cool because Nat already had a bunch of tunes. So some of [our collaboration] was just like, schedule based, it was like, “Okay, we know we want to do this thing, because we’ve been getting odd gigs.” It was really like motivated by the fact that we had shows coming up, and that was a reason to be like, “Let’s have new material for that.”

Then we were like, “Here’s our days when we can put together material.” Nat had just done a writing session where she had all this new stuff ready to go. These are the tunes that she’s cranking out and they feel very much like they come from something or some place that is like so near and dear to me, because it’s from our shared fiddle-camp upbringing. That’s like the source, the well, where the tunes come from, even though they’re new and different. It feels like very homey, I guess? The kind of tunes. And then I think we’ve just both grown a lot over the decades as musicians and as arrangers. We like bring more stuff to the table than when we were teenagers.

NH: I should certainly hope so! [Laughs]

That is the goal. [Laughs] That leads really naturally to my next question, which was going to be about material curation, especially because you both have demanding schedules that kept you apart, I’m sure, during the album creation to some degree. What was it actually like when you were like setting aside that time, like you’re talking about, to get together to make the music? What was the curation process like? It’s all originals, but one, yes?

NH: Yes. And yeah, that’s the nice thing about us both being busy is when you set aside a block of time, that’s all you are focused on. Brittany had all these amazing musical ideas and made all of my tunes better the minute she got her hands on them. The arranging process, it was pretty easy, because we’re both, comfortable switching back and forth between roles. I was just amazed at how much we got done in such a short amount of time, both in the arranging process and in the recording process. It all felt very easy. [Laughs]

BH: We did the bulk of it together, I think we had like a week or maybe slightly under a week when we first met to gather the material. And wasn’t that before we even knew we were making a record then?

NH: Oh yeah, that was preparing for a tour. Our first adult sister tour.

BH: No, no, no – second.

NH: Oh, second. Yeah! Because we toured Ireland. Right. We were playing all of these trad tunes, our shared repertoire from our of teenage years. And then for [Haas], we decided to make it all original. For the most part.

BH: Do you remember the moment when we actually said, “Let’s record this”?

NH: Uh… well, I think we toured it first. Then Brittany brings her handheld recorder to all of those gigs and recorded everything. We listened back to it and decided that it was actually pretty good and that we should make something of it. I think we had another tour coming up, of Australia, and we decided it would be fun to have something for people to take away with them.

BH: At that point, we didn’t meet again until a few days before the studio. We had arranged the material and toured it, so we kind of had it under our hands pretty good. And then a long amount of time passed, but during that time it was good to listen back to stuff and decide what we wanted to change.

We had like a couple days of rehearsals and revisions. That was from listening and emailing and saying like, “I have this idea about this. What do you think of that?” Then we had like three days in the studio before it went back to email, because Natalie lives in Spain and we’re also both busy doing stuff. So it was emailing like, “Do you like this take?” and, “Is it okay if I edit out the second B part on this?”

Did you trip into or over any sort of feeling like, “This reminds me of when we were playing together as kids” or did it feel like you were getting back on the bicycle in a way?

BH: I’d say mostly yes. It’s just really easy. I think in other collaborations, people aren’t always so willing to just try anything. We have this basis of, “I love you no matter what, and even though you’re being really annoying and you’re asking me to do something I don’t want to do, I’m still going to do it, because might as well.” It’s an ease of communication, which I think mostly comes from family. [Laughs]

NH: We were never really a band as kids. We did the odd gig, but it was always just for fun. Our parents weren’t pushing us into performing together. So yeah, no bad memories, really, associated with playing together as kids. But we do have the ease of having this shared history of fiddle camps and learning from the same kind of mentors.

BH: Since we’re both like primarily collaborators, this project was like running our own band. As adults we’ve both come into our own and we’ve probably become more opinionated about musical things as a result of that. So it’s fun to meet again where there’s a lot of give and take.

What do you think of the term, “chambergrass?” Is this album chambergrass? Is that even a thing?

BH: I like the term, but I’m not sure it applies here. I also don’t mind it applying here. I guess maybe that wouldn’t have been what I would have gone to, because from my perspective, it just feels so much more Celtic. It’s still in that sort of “past of American music,” that’s more over there in the Celtic Isles. It doesn’t feel very grassy, but I mean, that’s a part of me as a musician. So, it’s not like it’s not in there.

NH: It does feel like chamber music to me. Yeah… I’m not familiar with all of the myriad grass terms. [Laughs]

BH: We grew up going to Valley of the Moon Fiddle Camp, where there were a lot of genres meeting. So the boundaries were very blurred, and both of us having worked with Darol [Anger] from a young age, he’s all about blurring and negating the idea of boundaries. It’s everything, it’s all of that, it’s all the influences and where they’re going. I know the current Celtic world less than Nat does, but it seems like a lot of the forward-thinking, new tunes on stringed instruments are happening in chambergrass, the new acoustic realm, so it’s definitely an influence on both of us.

NH: It does have a Celtic bent, but it is Celtic from an American perspective – because we’re American. I’ve listened to a lot of stuff in the new acoustic realm – like Brittany said, all of our influences are coming out, and it’s hard to define a genre.

BH: I think Nat, for all of her “I don’t totally play bluegrass” sense of self, she can and she does sometimes. Some of the bluesier tunes that she writes lend themselves to that area.

You make very in-the-moment music, there’s a lot of improvisation, there’s a lot of dialogue, and this kind of music can often feel very – it’s silly to say this cause you’re literally performers – but it can often feel very performative and like there’s a lot of hubris in it. I also feel like new acoustic music, newgrass, jamgrass, and that sort of “Let’s jam out together, let’s be in the moment together!” music, it can often feel really masculine and toxic. How do you go about creating this space you’ve made together, to have those moments, to be together and present and making music, but it doesn’t feel like you’re being self-absorbed or self important?

BH: That is something I think about when I’m listening to music – and sometimes when I’m playing it. Sometimes I do feel like I’m uncomfortable, like that’s not something that I want to do. Even though you think that that’s what the music calls for in this moment, it can feel a little bit too masculine.

It’s like, “No, I don’t want to take a really long solo there.” I think I’m embracing that it’s okay to say, “No, I’m not gonna do that.” It’s a tricky one, because a lot of our heroes in that realm of creating this newer music, they’re men, and that nature is informing the music that they’re making and the way that they’re arranging it. It does have that hubris thing built into it. On some level, that is important and it does work well, for stepping into the moment and taking a great solo. You kind of have to have that attitude. But, it’s not necessarily masculine or feminine. Like it doesn’t have to be either one. It could be both.

What we’re trying to do, it’s a little more tune- or melody-based than based on soloing, so it lends itself well to a tight arrangement. That may not be the right term, because it still is loose, there still is a conversation going on. But, if there is a solo it’s pretty short, it’s this little thing we’re going to do to give a breath of fresh air here. It’s not like, “And now, we will rip for 50 more bars!”

“And now everybody look at me!”

BH: Yeah! I think in a duo especially, because we’re very equal and we like sharing, that’s just kind of part of the vibe. Even when Natalie’s filling more of an accompanist role, it’s still such a powerful, interesting sound. It’s so varied that it doesn’t fade into the background. It’s super interesting all the time. It’s like both voices are very equal, even if mine is higher.

NH: It’s interesting because, like Brittany said, a lot of our heroes are men. That’s definitely a generational thing in the Celtic music world, because like, the people that we grew up sort of – I don’t want to use a phrase like “hero worshipping” – that we admired and wanted to copy were mostly men, with a couple very key exceptions. But then, my generation in the Celtic music world is almost exclusively women. There are some men doing it, but it’s very different than the bluegrass thing.

Also like Brittany said, soloing is not as much a part of it. That changes the dynamic a little bit. But it is kind of a melody>accompaniment hierarchy going on. But I wouldn’t say that that’s necessarily a male thing, I don’t know.

As Brittany said before – and I hate to associate this with just feminine energy – but both of us coming from being collaborators in our other projects rather than soloists, per se, you could say that that is the more feminine approach, maybe, to music making. It does feel very equal because the melody playing is getting passed back and forth all the time. And it does feel very conversational, even though the soloing thing is not as prominent as it might be in some other genres.


I think that’s part of why you can listen through y’all’s entire album and it doesn’t feel stale, it doesn’t feel boring, while it also doesn’t feel like it’s trying too hard. It doesn’t feel like you guys have something to prove.

NH: That’s part of the thing with having done it at this point in our lives, it doesn’t feel like we have anything to prove anymore. We’re doing it because we want to, not because we’re trying to prove anything to the world.

Photo Credit: Irene Young

WATCH: Joe K. Walsh, “Tom”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Joe K. Walsh
Hometown: Portland, Maine
Song: “Tom”
Album: If Not Now, Who?
Release Date: January 6, 2023
Label: Adhyâropa Records

In Their Words: “I love how instrumental music can tell a nuanced story, maybe even a non-linear story. With the right combination of improvising musicians in the same room, sharing and listening, a tune finds its way in a way that reflects who is there, what someone just said, what that brought to mind in the next person, on and on. I love the way a tune becomes a vehicle for improvisers conversing with one another, and how a given performance can be so uniquely specific to one moment, one place, one combination of humans. I think Nikolai’s video perfectly matches that emotional arc. This tune is dedicated to the people who found creative ways to make sure that musicians survived the pandemic.” — Joe K. Walsh

Photo Credit: Nikolai Fox

Basic Folk – Mali Obomsawin

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

Y’all ready for a crossover? Basic Folk listeners will remember Mali Obomsawin from their work as a bassist, singer, and songwriter with folk trio Lula Wiles, but today we are celebrating Mali’s debut as a jazz bandleader/composer. Mali’s new album, Sweet Tooth, was inspired by field recordings of elders from Mali’s Wabanaki community.

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Mali’s improvisational approach to creating music results in a remarkable living piece of music that not only illustrates hundreds of years of their people’s history, but also illuminates their hopes for the rematriation of Native lands. One of the most insidious lies about Native people in the Americas is that they are relics of the past, not constantly-evolving communities. Through their music and activism, Mali refutes this claim. The record weaves field recordings with intense instrumentals and Mali’s stunning voice. They even co-wrote a Penobscot language chant to close the album. Sweet Tooth confronts heartbreaking history while insisting upon a path forward. It is at turns heartbreaking, jarring, tender, and fun.

Those who are interested in learning more about the concept of intersectionality will find this episode of Basic Folk fascinating. Mali and I dig deep into what it looks like to embrace gender freedom while remaining loyal to the bonds shared by women of color within a hostile colonial culture.

Editor’s Note: Basic Folk is currently running their annual fall fundraiser! Visit basicfolk.com/donate for a message from hosts Cindy Howes and Lizzie No, and to support this listener-funded podcast.

Photo Credit: Abby and Jared Lank