Studio Soundtrack features five songs selected by a student at Waterloo Architecture. This week, Samuel Ganton tries to show that there is bluegrass music to fit any mood.
Most people think of bluegrass as this kind of thing – rollicking banjos, twangy vocals, driving pace, cheery tune, morbid lyrics. And, well, they’re not wrong. But in recent years, young musicians steeped in that tradition have begun to take the instruments and the styling of bluegrass and make it their own. Several of the songs here probably don’t qualify as bluegrass at all, but what I love about them is their mood, their atmosphere, and the careful crafting of instrumentation and vocals. Some feel peaceful, meditative. Others are urgent and anticipatory, dark, or surreal. Feel free to lean back and enjoy (Or, like, do studio).
- Aoife O’Donovan – The Storms are on the Ocean
Aoife O’Donovan is one of the most wonderful singers that exists. And this track also has some of the sweetest banjo playing I’ve ever heard, from Noam Pikelny.
2. Chris Thile & Aoife O’Donovan – Here and Heaven
Ignore, if you can, the silly-looking video. The song itself is stunning. In the Goat Rodeo Sessions, Yo-Yo Ma collaborated with Chris Thile and others to invent a crossover genre between bluegrass and classical music, and it works in brilliant ways. “Here and Heaven” is pretty close to the bluegrass end of the spectrum, but the nuance of the lyrics and the subtle power of Thile and O’Donovan’s understated harmonies compel me to include it here.
3. Sarah Jarosz – Fuel the Fire
Another of my favourite folk/bluegrass singers is Sarah Jarosz, and on this track her dramatic lyrics are backed up by some fantastic driving fiddle and cello. You can hear Alex Hargreaves and Nathaniel Smith using their bows percussively, chugging along, and it just builds and builds. If you want to hear the full concert, you can check it out here.
4. Sara Watkins – Take up your Spade:
This song literally was my studio soundtrack through much of the 4B term. I came back to it nearly every day, finding that its gentle melody and the simple encouragement to “take up your spade and break ground” motivated me enough to get going. Sara Watkins is a wonderful singer who got famous as a fiddle player (check out her mad skills here) with the band Nickel Creek (check out their Tiny Desk Concert), but more recently started writing some wonderful solo albums.
5. Alison Krauss & Union Station – The Boy Who Wouldn’t Hoe Corn
It almost doesn’t seem fair to have two people as good as Alison Krauss and Dan Tyminski in the same band. But there’s nothing we can do. Here Tyminski takes centre stage, singing this moody ballad about a lazy farmer, and Krauss sings backup. (You know Dan Tyminski. No, seriously, you do: he provided George Clooney’s singing voice in O Brother Where Art Thou, on iconic tracks like Man of Constant Sorrow).
Bonus Track! You can hear my violin playing in this gentle lullaby about death (that’s correct) written by my friend Ellen Froese Kooijenga.
Samuel Ganton is a graduate student at the University of Waterloo School of Architecture. His thesis research focuses on designing a thunderstorm observatory on a lake in Venezuela.
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