Together, the two tracks lock into a near-drone headspace, causing the curious listener to wonder what Spiritualized or Moon Duo might sound like with a bluegrass inflection. These players zoom forward to faraway sonic realms before neatly returning to lyrics and more traditional sounds at the end. Strings follows that one with “Home,” a quieter but no less psychedelic journey with virtuosic guitars intertwining with commanding orchestral additions. “Away from the Mire” is inundated by a storm of strings that could topple over at its peak, but it remains captivating and entrancing throughout. The young warrior completes a challenging feat on this record as he strikes a thoughtful balance between traditional playing on short cuts and warmly weird psychedelic journeying on several other selections, most notably two seven-minute-plus recordings: “Away from the Mire” and “Home.” The former finds Strings and his top-tier bandmates engrossed in trippy instrumentation, like a bluegrass jam band that sounds less like Jerry Garcia and David Grisman and more like what old-time music might be like in 2045. His second solo LP and first release for Rounder Records is more sophisticated and polished than 2017’s Turmoil & Tinfoil, but no less bold.
Strings, a 26-year-old Michigan native, stuns on his cosmic new album, Home. Tradition is rich and reverent, but it’s also stifling to creativity and risk.īut there are searchers in the younger generations, whether they be artists like Rhiannon Giddens, Dom Flemons, and Kaia Kater exploring and exposing the musical perspectives of people of color or rock-indebted wunderkinds like Billy Strings seeking deep space on guitar. The genre often is stagnant to the point of self-parody. Compounded by generations of unwavering respect to the music and self-imposed rigidity, bluegrass continues to be highly wary of change.
0 kommentar(er)
