Grassicana

While any number of new bands have helped push the parameters of traditional bluegrass, few have done so with more diligence than Twisted Pine. Their roots were planted in traditional ground at the outset of their collective careers, as evidenced

There’s a lot to be said for a band that mines the buoyant sounds of vintage bluegrass while also paying heed to music and melodies that quickly connect, and leave the listener swooning and swaying with joy and jubilation. Those

Like other younger contemporary ensembles, The Wildmans tend to freely explore their music with a flexibility and finesse that pays little heed to preset boundaries or any textbook trappings. Although they certainly bear the proper credentials — an Appalachian birthright,

Laura Cortese has always been a prolific performer. She’s released several solo projects — Simple Hearts,  All in Always, Acoustic Project, Two Amps 1 Microphone, Hush, Blow the Candle Out, Into the Dark, Even the Lost Creek — as well

The honesty and good intent encompassing the whole of Kristen Grainger & True North’s Ghost Tattoo, an album that elevates them into a rarified position where endearing melodies and words of affirmation and integrity find a common bond, ought to

Any band that opts to bend a few boundaries and tamper with a template deserves credit for daring to do so. After all, programers and pundits prefer to put music in a convenient box because it makes their jobs easier

One of the most appealing aspects of the bluegrass community to me has always been the highly participatory nature of the scene. When you pull into a festival, odds are that the guy parking cars plays mandolin in a local

Scythian has always been a difficult band to define. Influenced by a collision of sounds and cultures, they ably blend bluegrass, Celtic, folk, Americana and other traditional templates to create a sound that’s uniquely their own. The bands’s founders, Alexander

After eight albums and a career that goes back more than 15 years, Pert Near Sandstone have come to represent the essence of Minnesota’s thriving progressive bluegrass community, environs also inhabited by such likeminded luminaries as Charlie Parr, 4onthefloor, and

The British band Police Dog Hogan may seem to wield a rather unlikely handle for a band that ploughs a grassicana terrain, but that doesn’t deter the band from making music that spans a wide array of essential influences and