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The Show On The Road – Rising Appalachia

Jul 22, 2020

This week on the Show On The Road, a conversation with Chloe Smith of Rising Appalachia. In 2005 she founded this unique partnership with her sister Leah after their relentless world travels finally intersected in southern Mexico, where Leah had started mastering the banjo.

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Growing up in a musical family of traditional string-band players and contra-dance leaders near Atlanta, Rising Appalachia’s latest release, Leylines, mixes the rustic front porch sound of their childhood family jam sessions with a neon-tinted modern backbeat of dancehall electronics and mystical protest. That could have felt incongruous, but somehow these influences mix beautifully with their ethereal, intertwined vocals and darting fiddle-and-banjo runs.

While our host, Z. Lupetin, was able to catch up with Chloe for this cross-country conversation, Leah has been marooned in Costa Rica since the world shut down in March and continues to work from there. The sisters and their talented six-piece band have become a beloved fixture at music festivals throughout the United States, but have also played stages in Colombia, Costa Rica, India, Italy, Hungary, Bulgaria, The Czech Republic, Ireland, Scotland, and more.

Always looking to challenge the traditional carbon-hungry touring routine, Leah dubbed their group as part of a growing “slow music movement”, and in this episode, Z. talks with Chloe about the time they toured remote Canadian farming islands via sailboat. It’s that kind of intimate and innovative traveling that Chloe would like to return to whenever the COVID-19 shutdown lifts in the coming years.

Stick around to the end of the episode for an acoustic version of “Harmonize” from Leylines, and check out Rising Appalachia’s newest single “Pulse,” featuring Dirtwire.

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The Show On The Road – Rising Appalachia

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