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Label

Thrill Jockey

BLACK TWIG PICKERS

Rough Carpenters

Rough Carpenters, which was recorded in the same two-day session as 2012’s Whompyjawed EP, can be seen as an inward-gazing foil to that EP’s long-form hoedown epics. With the addition of Sally Anne Morgan on fiddle to the trio of Mike Gangloff, Isak Howell, and Nathan Bowles, dance has become a more prominent part of the group’s formula. It wasn’t until Morgan joined the band that the band actually began to dance onstage. Also, on this album the group strays a bit farther outside their intensely local Southwest Virginia tradition than earlier records, incorporating a few more tunes with origins in Kentucky (“Banks of the Arkansas”) and West Virginia (“Little Rose”). The group’s repertoire is constantly growing as they turn to first-person sources, older musicians that were brought up in the old time scene and in some cases the children and families of deceased respected practitioners, and unreleased archival recordings passed among musicians. And while local and regional history is ever present in the music The Black Twig Pickers play, they turn songs that are many decades old into living artifacts, released from the restrictions of era by the personal convictions of the musicians.

Tracklist

• 01. Blind Man’s Lament
  02. Rough Carpenters
  03. Little Rose
  04. Banks of the Arkansas
  05. Elkhorn Ridge
  06. The Poplar Pole
  07. Where the Whippoorwills are Whispering Goodnight
  08. You Play the High Card and I’ll Play the Ace
  09. Old Christmas Morning
  10. Roll on John
  11. Jack of Diamonds
  12. Charleston Girls
  13. Sift the Meal and Save the Bran
  14. I Can’t Stay Here By Myself