Staff Reviews

The Black Twig Pickers - Whompyjawed

Review by Richard Wink

This is music for a niche audience, with little crossover appeal. This is music that will forever get spread with dandelion seeds in the wind, and likely remain unflustered by such a lukewarm appraisal. The righteous word will carry and The Black Twig Pickers will travel, following that wind, going wherever their music takes them.»

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closethe black twig pickers take it to the dance floor on 'whompyjawed', offering long-form, highly rhythmic and deeply layered takes on traditional fiddle and banjo music. joined by some of the musicians who frequent the southwest virginia square dance and flatfooting scene - fiddler sally morgan, and bassist / guitarists sam linkous and joe dejarnette - and by a troupe of accomplished feet-percussionists, the twigs work up propulsive and mesmerizing versions of two side-long songs. 'merry mountain hoedown' is an old-time rocker with mike gangloff and sally morgan's duo fiddles sawing atop a careening bed of pounding feet and furiously locked-in banjo, guitars and bass, while 'brushy fork of john's creek,' with sally fiddling and mike banjo-ing, wanders more spectral - but no less ferocious - territory, with nathan bowles' washboard and isak howell's guitar and mouth harp guiding a long and shifting mix of clattering drone. the skillet lickers meet faust iv?
description from www.roughtrade.com