Danny Barnes With Teddy Thompson June 3, 2011

Danny Barnes
with Teddy Thompson

The banjo stirs a feeling of timelessness with its old time/bluegrass/folk associations. Danny Barnes builds with these base molecules of the instrument's heritage, sculpting a sound with one foot in contemporary technological landscapes, another in deep running traditions, and arms waving free in outer space. Found audio samples merge and crash as the instrument's high picking peaks and valleys of bassy depths loop in a journey through the American heart of darkness and back towards the light. Add the free form jazz of Ornette Coleman to the legacy of Dock Boggs, remix it with DJ Shadow, and view it through a DIY punk aesthetic and you have some idea of Folktronics. Live, on studio or homemade records, and through the countless concert recordings that circulate in the taper scene as word-of-mouth gems, Barnes is a sonic pioneer, hacking through the underbrush with his musical weapons of choice, banjo as compass.

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