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Sample Track 1:
"Machine" from Four Little Sisters
Sample Track 2:
"Homage to Oumou" from Four Little Sisters
Layer 2
Album Review

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Hearth Music, Album Review >>

So yeah, I kinda made up the genre "alt-stringband", but I think it fits well. There are a good number of groups taking the old stringband idea and ramping it up with avant-garde arrangements inspired by jazz listening and conservatory training. These two bands are some of the best examples of where traditional stringbands have been taken today.

By now, most people should know that Black Prairie is the "stringband" side project of Decemberist members accordionist Jenny Conlee-Drizzos (Sparklepony from Portlandia!), dobro multi-instrumentalist Chris Funk, and bassist Nate Query (plus drummer John Moen). Portland roots scene stalwart John Neufeld (Jackstraw, Dolorean) rounds out the band, and Portland fiddler Annalisa Tornfelt steps up to the mic on the new disc, assuming lead vocal duties. She's got a gorgeous, ethereal voice, so it's great to hear Black Prairie bringing her more to the fore. Though the arrangements and compositions on the new album are notably complex and nuanced, really the key to Black Prairie is their insane blend of a hundred different cultural influences. In the space of one song, say "Dirty River Stomp," you can hear barrelhouse piano, old cartoon musical accompaniment, Parisian cafe nuances, and some grooved-out Zydeco accordion. "Taraf" features guest musicians Paul Beck on cimbalom (Hungarian hammered dulcimer associated with Roma music) and Irish pennywhistle player Hanz Araki and sounds like a full-blown Eastern European party. Perhaps the most interesting track conceptually is "34 Wishes," a riff-based folk jam that started off, according to Nate Query, as an attempt to put Mastodon's crushing heavy metal jams on to folk instruments. Hunting out strange musical influences in this new Black Prairie album becomes something of a fun game as you progress through it. But this hides the fact that only the best players can unite so many strange ideas into a cohesive whole. Don't try this at home folks, otherwise you end up with the gypsy-jazz-klezmer-slam-grass hybrids that seem to proliferate everywhere. Throughout all these madcap musical melanges, Annalisa Tornfelt's voice floats supreme. And the best tracks on the album are definitely the songs. "How Do You Ruin Me" got a ton of plays at our house before we got the advance copy, mainly because it's such a gorgeous, catchy song. "Little Song Bird" is another keeper, a great folk song that could fit on a lullaby album. "Rock of Ages" sounds like it could have come off a Sarah Jarosz album. Which makes sense since they're labelmates and have collaborated before. I guess the main point here is that Black Prairie is clearly having far too much fun rifling through each other's record collections for cool ideas to bother coming up with some kind of new genre definer for their music. Good thing too, who needs those phony genres anyway!

 09/13/12 >> go there
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