This time, Bluegrass Briefs features music from around the world and all across the Bluegrass tradition, from the rough and rowdy Scottish ways of Sociograss to the almost classical music of Triple Fiddle from Minnesota and Australia’s Runaway Strings; the genre is alive and well and keeping in touch with the modern world through songs like Come On Feel The Algorithm. The musicianship on Bluegrass Women is quite exceptional, and we may well have an album of the year on our hands.
Sociograss describe themselves as “a rough and rowdy Americana collective based in Edinburgh.” Their second album, Glee and Glutton, mixes Bluegrass with bits of Scottish folk and close harmony singing. The latter appears on Wake Up, which is just their voices and some wheezy harmonium. The jazzy Little Maggie features some typically frenetic bluegrass soling. The album was made possible by American horror novelist Michael Park, who commissioned the band to produce music to be featured on audiobook releases of his writings. That resulted in an EP, Kentucky Dragon and also this very fine album. Scotgrass anyone?
Triple Fiddle is exactly that: 3 fiddlers, Rachel Calvert, Jackie Rae Daniels, and Maura Dunst. The opening instrumental, Lost Creek No. 3, is where Bluegrass meets Bach, with virtuoso playing which never allows technique to overwhelm fun. Cold, Cold Heart adds equally harmonious layered vocals to the mix. Any EP which celebrates A Very Good Sandwich from the Burnett Dairy Cooperative in song can’t be ignored. The waltz time piece is the highlight of the EP, and a reason to visit a sandwich shop right now.
Australian trio The Runaway Strings have released an album, Blackwood. Living The Dream could be the theme song for everyone working at a job they would rather walk away from. That human element to their storytelling shows up throughout the album. The life of the musician in the modern world is covered in two of the best songs here, which also close the album. The narrator of Come On Feel The Algorithm complains that most of his followers are bots. In Give Up Don’t Try, it’s the struggle of playing to an indifferent crowd. Brilliant.
Lindsay Lou has produced an album and documentary project celebrating Bluegrass Women. Featuring a roll call of names including Molly Tuttle, Sierra Hull, Aoife O’Donovan, and Sarah Jarosz. The album is a collection of tunes from some of the finest female songwriters in the genre. Dorothy Skaggs, Allison Brown, Kate Wolf, and Hazel Dickens are just four of the featured writers, who produced songs you know but didn’t realise who their author was. There isn’t a bad song on the album, and it needs to be heard and appreciated for the celebration of the genre and especially women’s part in it.
The documentary trailer gives a clue as to what you can expect on the album. Hopefully coming to a streaming TV platform near you soon.
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