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Abigail Washburn & The Sparrow Quartet
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Uncle Earl vocalist and banjo player takes her fascination with Appalachian and Chinese cultures and teams up with the world’s best banjo player Bela Fleck. By Martin Jones.
Abigail Washburn & The Sparrow Quartet
Abigail Washburn & The Sparrow Quartet
Nettwerk/Shock
I’m hesitant to review this startling recording of sings and strings under the country banner, but then I’d be just as hesitant to lob it into any other such restrictive category either. Here the Uncle Earl vocalist and banjo player takes her fascination with Appalachian and Chinese cultures, teams up with the world’s best banjo player Bela Fleck and cellist Ben Sollee and violinist Casey Driessen and throws any stylistic restraints out the window in pursuit of her own unique vision.
If you were planning to sit down to some jolly old-timey country folk, you’d be in for a disturbing shock as at its most confronting this fusion comes across like Kate Bush fronting a freeform virtuosic string quartet. But don’t let that put you off (tall order, I know)… once you get your head around Washburn’s yelping and yodelling and the eccentric tangle of plucks and saws, there’s plenty for the open mind to digest. And, despite the above quips, much of it is breathtakingly, unconventionally beautiful.
Sure, there are moments of more conventional Appalachian-style fiddle and banjo interplay and they help to ground this record in some point of reference. But from there, Fleck, Sollee and Driessen leap into interplay that has a more classical tone in its complexity.
And Washburn’s own banjo playing often mutates into an Eastern feel, reflecting her interest in China. Washburn even sings in Chinese in occasion (‘Taiyang Chulai’ for example). A great example of the multi-cultural agility of the group comes when they morph seamlessly from the traditional Asian tones of ‘A Kazakh Melody’ into the bluegrass romp of ‘Banjo Pickin’ Girl’ – no mean feat!