' clawhammer banjo music has always lived in three planes of existence: Rooted in the past, with a foothold in the present and an eye on the future. But as much as we think about folk music speaking across time — its seeking melodies and lyrics ever-resonant — Bowles wants to pluck sound from space itself.
For his fourth album, Plainly Mistaken, Bowles expands to a trio for five tracks, featuring double bass player Casey Toll (Jake Xerxes Fussell, Mount Moriah) and drummer Rex McMurry (CAVE). From the first moments of "The Road Reversed," a melody spirals outward from Bowles' rhythmic banjo, heavily bowed bass and rolling percussion. The piece was originally written in 2016 while he was on tour with , but really only took shape when Bowles began to rehearse with his new members.
As the 10-minute track evolves, there are moments of punk-driven percussion and elliptical melodies turned all the way around, but its simultaneously ecstatic and droning composition recalls moments from A Monastic Trio by , another experiment in mixing up the trio format from 1968. Like Coltrane, Bowles tears open a tiny piece of fabric in the folk music continuum to let in the cosmic debris.
Plainly Mistaken comes out Oct. 5 via .
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