THE BLACK TWIG PICKERS

Event information

Following a storming show here in April, The Black Twig Pickers are back in the country to play Latitude festival and are coming back to Brighton for one of a handful of special warm up shows.

Banjos and fiddles, boards and bones in hand, the Black Twig Pickers dove into a living tradition of old-time music that surrounds their homes along the Virginia-West Virginia line and never looked back. Both scholars of the regional sounds and advocates of an ecstatic and highly personal approach to the music, the Twigs hold down local dance and bar gigs, play all manner of celebrations and every so often, hit the road.

Along the way, Isak Howell, Nathan Bowles and Mike Gangloff kept company with some of underground America's heavyweights and haunted the doorsteps of Appalachian fiddle and banjo masters. They've played for the National Council for the Traditional Arts and for audiences overseas. And they've put out a string of acclaimed albums on VHF, Klang, and Thrill Jockey, including 2010's "Ironto Special" and 2009's "Jack Rose & the Black Twig Pickers."

"The Black Twigs come from the tradition more akin to the previous generation of masters than from many of those plying the trade today ... wild and wooly playing, full out. What a refreshing sound, nothing fancy here! ... The Black Twigs recapture the golden age of old-time music with all the spirit intact." -- Sing Out! Magazine

"The Appalachian Crazy Horse" -- cowsarejustfood

"Exciting old-time music at its finest." -- Bluegrass Unlimited

www.klang.org/artists/2-black-twig-pickers