Currently residing in Durham, NC, many know multi-instrumentalist Nathan Bowles as a member of psych-drone-experimenters Pelt and unvarnished string-band exponents the Black Twig Pickers, but in 2012 he commenced a solo trajectory that’s extended with Whole & Cloven, his third LP and second for Paradise of Bachelors. Combining flawless playing with a deep understanding of tradition and a healthy engagement with the avant-garde, this wide-ranging delight is available now on vinyl, compact disc, and digital.
At their most uninspiring, contempo string-band ventures come saddled with the burden of polite reverence, an aura sparking images of modern-day barbershop quartets. These reanimated relics often perform during regional weekend beer and wine festival season, with their wares innocuous if rarely annoying.
The records of Virginia’s Black Twig Pickers easily transcend the limitations of this scenario. Most prominently issued through Thrill Jockey, the Twigs first emerged early last decade on the small but highly worthwhile experimental label VHF, an imprint also responsible for documenting the output of fellow VA act Pelt.
Nathan Bowles joined Pelt right around the time his friend Jack Rose left the group to concentrate on his noted solo oeuvre. Bowles plays washboard on Rose’s 2008 LP Dr. Ragtime and his Pals (recently reissued by Three Lobed Recordings) and ’10s Luck in the Valley for Thrill Jockey, so it shouldn’t be difficult to gather how the Twigs ended up on the Chicago company’s roster.
Bowles 2012 solo debut A Bottle, a Buckeye came out via Soft Abuse, but since then he’s been a varied participant in Paradise of Bachelors’ release scheme; alongside his ’14 follow-up Nansemond he’s collaborated with labelmates Hiss Golden Messenger, Steve Gunn, and Jake Xerxes Fussell. Outside the PoB sphere he’s featured on lauded Brit guitarist Michael Chapman’s album The Polar Bear for Blast First Petite.
It’s become commonplace to peg musicians of Bowles’ ilk as being spawned from the rekindling of interest in American Primitive Guitar, but while the innovations of John Fahey and his handful of contemporaries can be heard in Bowles’ recordings, by this late date it’s more useful to place him beside contempo counterparts such as Gunn, Charlie Parr, Cian Nugent, and Daniel Bachman, and under an umbrella of example provided by mentor-contemporaries Rose and Glenn Jones.
With its focus on Bowles’ memories of his childhood near Virginia’s Great Dismal Swamp, Nansemond can be considered a thematic relative of Jones’ outstanding My Garden State. Contrasting, Whole & Cloven unwinds as a more introspective affair as the record opens with a highly attractive clawhammer banjo session.
The briskness of A Bottle, a Buckeye’s “Cindy” might be the most gorgeous Bowles’ piece this writer has yet heard, but the more contemplatively paced “Words Spoken Aloud” isn’t far behind. Accented by a subtle but persistent thread of reverberating percussion, the cut thrives on the mixture of beauty and intensity familiar to the current crop of post-American Primitive instrumentalists and sets this LP on its exceptional course.
The cyclical, minimalist classical piano of “Chiaroscuro” brings a sharp departure, and in fact some newcomers might assess the stylistic switch as drastic, but anybody conversant with Pelt or the aggressively abrasive bowed strings culminating A Bottle, a Buckeye’s “Beans” will know Bowles is positioned between Appalachian tradition and aspects of the avant-garde.
While short at three and a half minutes, “Chiaroscuro”’s resonant patterns reinforce the artist’s breadth very effectively, and it’s followed by the exceptional “Blank Range/ Hog Jank II,” the first part layering banjo pluck, rhythmic shuffle, wordless vocals, and string drone as the latter portion digs into an especially rich passage of clawhammer science.
Next comes “Moonshine is the Sunshine,” a cover of a song by Jeffrey Cain, Bowles’ appealing take interpolating aspects of the songwriter’s two recorded versions, the first on ’70’s For You and the second on ’72’s Whispering Thunder; both LPs were issued by Raccoon, an increasingly legendary Warner Brothers side label supervised by Youngblood member Jesse Colin Young.
But instead of a mere cross-stitch of rural hippie-folk and country-rock this reading possesses distinct flavor in large part courtesy of the banjo but also via the loose drive of the drums. And through the incorporation of Moroccan Gnawa influences “Gadarene Fugue” finds Bowles taking his primary axe on a trip far beyond Appalachia, though the results are ultimately quite complementary.
If “Words Spoken Aloud” and finale “Burnt Ends Rag” essentially showcase the banjo as a vessel of melodic percussiveness (with the latter additionally offering some delightful washboard), the expansive eleven minutes of “I Miss My Dog” coalesces into the record’s most personal statement, in part due to the title (obviously) but mainly in how its multifaceted length allows one to fully soak up the naturally unfurling combination of trad and new elements (and on further listens enhancing the selections surrounding it).
Nathan Bowles’ numerous support roles and his participation in Pelt and the Black Twig Pickers surely essay his value as an instrumentalist and his abilities as a collaborator, but it’s the solo work that’s grown into the apex of his productivity; intersecting advanced technique and a unique point of view, Whole & Cloven is the best of the bunch.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A
