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Rough Carpenters

by The Black Twig Pickers

supported by
Kyle Isom
Kyle Isom thumbnail
Kyle Isom I picked this album up two months ago, and It's become one of my go-to pick-me-up albums. Beautiful old-time music, I dare you to listen to this without stomping your foot.

It was difficult to pick a favourite track; Banks of the Arkansas is probably that track though. I love them all, though: Rough Carpenters, Elkhorn Ridge, Jack of Diamonds, Charleston Girls, and I Can't Stay Here By Myself are standouts too. Favorite track: Banks of the Arkansas.
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  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    CD version includes a 4 page booklet with history and tunings of each song and is packaged in a mini-LP style gatefold package custom printed on chipboard stock at Stumptown Printers.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Rough Carpenters via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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Little Rose 02:44
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Roll On John 02:12
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about

The Black Twig Pickers are a group defined by their forward thinking approach to a type of music most often associated with times gone by. Over the course of eight full-length records, including collaborative releases with Jack Rose and Charlie Parr, a split LP with Glenn Jones, and numerous EPs and singles, the group has established itself as a collection of dedicated practioners of old time music re-cast and shaped by their appreciation of modern improvisation, drone, and punk. While not at odds with the experimental scene that has fostered them or the old time circles they travel in, The Black Twig Pickers thrive in the in-betweenness of those two worlds, proving that the exploration of the outmost bounds of sound and the exploration of decades old tradition and community aren’t as different as one might think.

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.

This spirit of ecstatic abandon is conveyed through the percussive elements of The Black Twig Pickers’ music and more importantly, through a spontaneity and an unrehearsedness the band wears as a badge of pride. As Gangloff explains, “It’s not the melody, it’s the moss.” The sharp twang of the banjo, a spontaneous holler, a foot stomping along in time, and other seemingly incidental sounds become all important. Like the band’s previous Thrill Jockey full-length Ironto Special, Rough Carpenters was recorded with absolutely no overdubs and in as few takes as possible. The Black Twig Pickers are indeed rough carpenters, building unpolished but finely crafted records that embody the spirit of a timeless old-time scene.

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released February 19, 2013

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The Black Twig Pickers Virginia

The Black Twig Pickers are a group defined by their forward thinking approach to a type of music most often associated with times gone by. The group has established itself as a collection of dedicated practioners of old time music re-cast and shaped by their appreciation of modern improvisation, drone, and punk. ... more

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