SOUNDTRACK: RISING APPALACHIA-Tiny Desk Concert #940 (January 31, 2020).
I feel like I have heard of Rising Appalachia, but I’m not sure that I have. If I had, I certainly didn’t know anything by them. But I think I had a pretty safe guess.
Rising Appalachia’s Tiny Desk Concert is charged with the roots music that sisters Leah Song and Chloe Smith learned in fiddle camps as kids. Growing up in urban Atlanta and beyond, they also heard rhythms from a wider world, and their music grew to reflect new sounds and their activism. When they came to NPR, their van was packed with a bodhrán (Irish drum), an ngoni (West African harp) a huge gourd, a cello, a baritone guitar and more, including the other musicians who make up this wandering, Atlanta-based band: David Brown, Biko Casini, Arouna Diarra and Duncan Wickel.
And so, with this band you get traditional-sounding folk music but with world music instruments and influences. It melds beautiful. And their lyrics are great, too.
“Resilient” starts the set with just the two of them. Chloe Smith is on banjo while Leah Song is on bodhrán. Their voices are great together as they sing a fantastic protest song. There’s so many great lyrics to choose from, but I’ll pick just this one
My voice feels tiny I’m sure so does yours / put em all together make a mighty roar.
There’s also a really catchy “who ho ho” in the chorus, which is a fun treat.
After the song, Leah says they are reviving the voice of the people. Then, introducing the next song, “Medicine” she says this is for all of our ancestors and all the medicine keepers.
Chloe switches to acoustic guitar. The song begins with a a bowed, then plucked cello from Duncan Wickel. Biko Casini plays a high hat with a big circular gourd for a bass and percussive sound.
There’s a very nice bowed cello solo. Leah sings lead and Chloe adds some terrific harmonies. Midway through the song you can really hear Arouna Diarra on the ngoni, playing some high notes, but it’s his solo at the end of the song that is so cool. I’m fascinated by this instrument.
Before the final song, they joke that they wanted Leah to jump on the desk and that they might crowd surf.
Leah says she was going to shave I Love Bob Boilen into her hair. Or maybe NPR, but if you mess that up it could just go wrong.
They end the set with a song Leah and Chloe “learned from our mama, an old boot-stompin’ Appalachian folk tune” called “Cuckoo.” They aim to bring old music into a new format.
“Cuckoo” is a song I know from Kristin Hersh and, coincidentally, she played it when I saw her recently.
For this song, Leah plays the banjo and Chloe plays the violin (as does Duncan Wickel). Their take is rather different from Kristin’s–not in the melody or lyrics but the way they sing the words. Kristin has a very different vocal style.
The end features a njongi solo along with the baritone guitar solo from David Brown followed by a fiddle solo
And after a minute or so of soloing there’s split second pause before everyone rocks out a bit. You can really hear the baritone guitar and its bass notes here.
I really enjoyed this set and I’m very curious about this band.
[READ: February 20, 2020] Princeless: Raven Book 2
Book One of this series was pretty intense. And book two doesn’t really let up.
Well, the first chapter lets up some as we meet the crew and the women get used to the ship. There are some rope climbing contests, everyone also wants to take a turn steering. And Ximena and Raven are arguing already.
It’s a cool way to meet some of the new cast. Dezzy would rather sunbathe than work. Helena is very strong, Cid is deaf–which we find out because Jayla is yelling at her (to no avail obviously) and is getting frustrated and petulant–she’s a terrible character. And powerful Sunshine is incredibly seasick.
Then they get into some sword practice. Raven addresses her crew calling them bilge rats. But Katie interrupts, “The insulting thing, is that something we have to do?”
Raven says she never thought of it. That’s just how pirates speak. But Raven decides the ship will be a democracy (except in battle when her word is law). She asks who finds insults to be a motivator? No one raises her hand. Raven hereby abolishes “name-calling, back-biting, under-cutting, insulting and sarcastic undermining” from her ship.
Jayla comes up on deck and forces something down Sunshine’s throat. Raven is sick of Jayla bossing her way around (as we all are) but it turns out that she has cured Sunshine of her seasickness. Jayla says hates that no one listens to her. So Raven makes one more rule that in all matters of science they are to defer to Jayla, which allows Jayla to cool off some.
The next day they dock ant Xingtao island. They have two missions–to get supplies and to find out about Raven’s brothers. Sunshine wants to go ob the recon mission but (much to her dismay) Raven asks her to teach the rest of the crew pickpocketing and other useful skills.
The one group heads to the apothecary. Quinn wants a fight, but they are just there to buy things. The apothecary clerk is a sexist pig. He immediately says they don’t have love potions and suggests they should learn how to cook food instead of potions.
Raven and her team head to Xingtao Market–the largest black market on the seas. We learn that this island was built from nothing by her great great great grandmother Baroness Xingtao. She also built The Free Woman’s Palace, where any woman could come and request help, be it military force or sanctuary from an abusive husband. (What a great series this is).
Katie and her crew go to find some rope, which the dicey salesman uses to tie her up. This allows his men to attack the other three. Soon enough half of the women are drugged by darts.
In the apothecary five sword-wielding men crash in looking for the women. And even though the book has been sorely lacking in humor these guys provide some surprisingly great comic relief (even though they are really bad).
They men split up to look for the women “but try not to hurt them.” Then John (a big guy with a mostly shaved head) says, “Yeah, you know what a good wench will sell for around here?” A third guy says, “John. That’s gross, John. That’s why you never get to come on any of these missions.”
Awesome. But it’s not over.
The men walk up to the clerk who says, “Excuse me, is there something I can help you gentlemen with?” The leader of the bullies says, “Yes, you can put that preposition in the middle of the sentence where it belongs.” Owww, sick burn!
Then John says, “Yeah, choke on it! And after that why don’t you cut your hair and brush your teeth. You sad excuse for a human being.” The third guys admonishes, “John. Not cool, John. You’ve gt to learn how to conduct yourself in public.”
Later when Jayla throws sodium in a tank with an electric eel (for a future attack), John laughs at her and says, “She throws like girl!” And the other guy says, “Really, John. Sexism now too?”
Once again Higgins and Brandt do an excellent hob with the ensuing fight scenes which are lengthy and complicated, but very easy to follow.
The women put up a great fight and take out most of their assailants, but the knock out darts leaves 8 of them trapped in a cage with alligators surrounding them. And the man overseeing this pit of death is none other than Raven’s brother Crow,
In the final chapter Cid comes up with a great plan and along with Jayla chemicals, they create a distraction while the rest of the crew breaks into the castle.
There’s some more great fight scenes (including fighting with alligators) and when the dust clears Raven is face to face with her brother, Magpie.
He calls her “dear little sister” and she retorts, “you narcissistic drama queen I’m two years older than you.”
Raven takes control of Magpie, but Crow, with the help of his team of ninjas (!), is able to capture Ximena, whom he of course recognizes (she’s even cuter than I remember).
They each let their prisoners go, but Crow hurls Ximena onto the rocks and she needs medical help as the book ends.
The excitement of this book feels much more perilous than the other series and I’m quite hooked.
I Just Read About That... 
Leave a comment