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One of the great things about Amie Street (and really, this whole crazy Internet thing in general) is the endless landscape of content. You could sit down and for the rest of your life do nothing but read, listen, and watch...do nothing but consume media, and not finish a fraction of what lies at your fingertips. There's a lot of stuff out there. All kinds of stuff. A lot of it's pretty good. Which is why we keep coming back, I guess.
Still, even with the knowledge that nothing under the sun can escape this massive web, I find pleasure in the discovery of something that just doesn't seem like it should have come from the Internet. Some anachronistic gem, reminiscent of a simpler time when folks shook hands instead of poked, when smiling faces were less perfectly circular and yellow.
Weiser Sunrise ($3.97) was released in 2005 by Portland (the left one) natives Foghorn Stringband, but the songs may as well have been discovered in some forgotten West Virginian time capsule, finding light after generations of darkness. Critics whose livings are made by knowing such things heap praise on the band's faithfulness to old-time styles and sensibilities, which is agreeable to me but falls short of justice for the folksy triumph of Foghorn Stringband's music. It sounds concomitantly familiar and new; it is at once similar to so many other wonderful fiddle-driven concoctions you've tapped your foot to before, and refreshingly unique.
It's not an instrumental record, but it's got plenty of instrumental to go around. It's not a rock record, but it rocks in a way all its own and is sure to appeal to fans of precision playing, rock or otherwise. It's not old, it just sounds that way, and it's not good, it's (cue Tony the Tiger) great. Simply put, Foghorn Stringband is another in a long line of great Amie Street discoveries. You'll want to come back and listen to it for a long time to come, but you won't be able to get it on the cheap for very long. Hop to it.
Buy the album Weiser Sunrise for $3.97
Key Tracks:
Kicking up the Devil on a H...
(27¢)
Golden Slippers
(26¢)
My Father Has A house
(27¢)
