This is an extremely unusual album collecting solo acoustic guitar pieces from Steve Baughman, Michael Stadler, Jody Stecher, and Alec Stone-Sweet done in a clawhammer style. Clawhammer is an old-time banjo technique (sometimes called frailing) that places emphasis on down-picking (using the back of the fingernail) and it bares little relation to what is generally considered fingerpicking. On banjo it creates a modal, archaic sound far removed from the bluegrass style most people these days ...   [ read more ]

CD $16.13

Ralph Stanley is one of very few bluegrass banjo players who still take off the steel fingerpicks occasionally and play in the older, more traditional clawhammer (or "frailing") style. It's a more percussive, less intricate approach, one that carries with it the rough-hewn charm of old-time string band music rather than the flashier, more commercial appeal of bluegrass. This disc collects 18 live and studio recordings in that mode by Stanley, some made just a few years prior to this album's ...   [ read more ]

CD $15.18

From the vibrant Southern quasi-capital of Durham emerge Megafaun, wearing earnestness across the chest and abstraction along the sleeves. They pour forth dulcet harmonies, as seeking vocals tug banjo lines up the Appalachian mountains; redemptive noise soaks everything, like thick air wafting from the Atlantic. Clawhammer banjo and strummed acoustics lock and roll with electric guitars and electronic textures. They realize that folk implies deep, personal, intense expression, whether the instrument is a p...   [ read more ]

CD $14.99

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