Brian Harnetty
“Working like a novelist, Harnetty has immersed himself in an archive of field recordings—slices of past lives—and now emerges to create a new text, breathing new life into old chunks of sound by radically recontextualising them.” —The Wire
Brian Harnetty, an eclectic, experimental Columbus musician—whose work is a stew of everything from Appalachian music, field recordings, old Sun Ra snippets, and original compositions—whose last album, 'The Star-Faced One,' was tagged "fascinating" by renown music critic Byron Coley—has a new album out with Dust-to-Digital.
This new album, 'Rawhead & Bloodybones,' features a disturbing grab-bag of archived Appalachian folktales told by chirpy children accompanied by original music. In the track "Merrywise," Jane from Kentucky narrates a story told to her by her grandmother overtop folk-music that laps in and out, oftentimes trumping the narrative, sometimes pausing entirely as in one instance for Jane to deliver the line: "...and cuts their heads off."
The effect is summarized best by Mojo Magazine, while reviewing Harnetty's last album: "peculiarly intimate and beautiful, a drifting dialogue between past and present."
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