![]() It actually is a song that nearly as old as the country, with the first published version appearing in Ananias Davison‘s songbook Kentucky Harmony in 1816, since when everyone from Gwenifer Raymond to The Watersons to Sufjan has had a go at it so a proper statement then, of being within, or at least stemming forth from, a strong musical tradition. And Bill and Nathan handle it with stately regard and clear, ringing nuance, connecting with it as a tune handled by countless nameless troubadours who’ve gone into those hills before. It’s a twin lament for their chosen string instruments, and is fully imbued with the old-time America you can pretty much see the dusty ridges, the simple whitewashed meeting houses a nation as yet spiritually and agriculturally concerned, introspective, yet to raise its head up and start bouncing across the world stage as a superpower even, temporarily, an orange one. We start right at the beginning, which isn’t as dumbass as it might sound, once you embrace “Idumea”. In the photo booth: Nathan Bowles, left, and Bill MacKay ![]() And you just know it’s gonna be lovely, and gorgeous, and fun, with them both at the wheel. The set was committed to tape in Chicago with the easy, smiling intensity two really adept musicians who both get along famously and complement each other can bring and a real sensitivity for whatever each song asks in turn, be it nuance, kickin’ back and wheelin’ free, joy, whichever. It comprises eight originals and a brace of songs “from other centuries”, and expect more than guitar and banjo in a creative pirouette there’s organ, both electric and pump joined voices even a requinto, a smaller, higher pitched string instrument with Portuguese roots.īill and Nathan say Keys is made of “equal parts bluegrass, classical, country, gospel, improv and that ol’ innocence and experience to boot.” They’ve been sending sketches and ideas back and forth from Bill’s base in the Windy City and Nathan, out there in Durham, North Carolina, and played together a year after meeting at a festival under the grab-bag name Cropped Out, and that night went swingingly, serenely, even they found a depth, a gestalt, more than the sum of their parts in concert with each other.Ī few more shows on and there was an obvious next step: this album, Keys, which the good folks over at Drag City release today. Keys is actually the first time Bill and Nathan have stepped out together on record, although they first met a few years back now it’s said that after the first night they hung out, it felt as if they’d known each other a while already. There was 2019’s darker two-hander with cellist Katinka Klein, Stir, a more angular and experimental study for two instruments, at once bold and fragile oh, others, many others.īut we’re excited as can be that he’s getting together with Appalachian folk and drone fellow traveller Nathan Bowles for Keys, an album we’re told will determinedly push beyond the simple, sterile categorisation, ‘guitar/banjo duets’. MacKay’s music has received praise in reviews by the Chicago Reader, Mojo, Uncut, Downbeat, Paste, Pop Matters, The Quietus, Rolling Stone, Pitchfork and many other publications.BILL MACKAY, the Chicago-based guitarist, improviser of note and all-round scion of six strings, sure loves to enter into a two-way conversation with other artists with reliably beautiful results witness the brace of albums he’s recorded with the freewheelin’ Ryley Walker, Land Of Plenty and Spiderbeetlebee. īill MacKay’s blissful harmonic control and just-outside-the-box guitar mastery are one with his compelling songwriting, and his creative voyage and imaginative influences are fully displayed on his most recent solo records: Fountain Fire (Drag City, 2019) Esker (Drag City, 2017), and SpiderBeetleBee (Drag City, 2017) his second duo set with Ryley Walker. and the Black Monks of Mississippi, Angel Olsen, Tim Kinsella and Jazz artists: Ben LaMar Gay, Angel Bat Dawid, Mike Reed, French experimental group, The Bridge, AACM member, Earnest Dawkins and Soundscape Artist Joseph C.Mills. He has been active in the Chicago music scene since 1993 and has collaborated with the likes of Leroy Bach, Artist, Theaster Gates Jr. Marvin Tate is a multidisciplinary Artist and Educator.
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