Description

Recorded in Austin, Texas in March of 2020, just days before the city and the rest of the world shut down, Ralph White spent two days with producer, Jerry David DeCicca (Will Beeley, Ed Askew) and recording engineer, Don Cento, capturing a raw and wild set of performances. Ralph, having recently converted his van into a mobile living and touring quarters equipped with a wood-burning stove, left Austin, the city where he was born over 70 years ago, and retreated to an Arizona commune where he began building a new house in the desert hills to escape the virus and insanity of daily living. Ralph takes us on a journey through his myriad of travels: from Dock Boggs to Syd Barrett to William Faulkner to Stella Chiweshe to Blind Uncle Gaspardscratching banjo, rasping train whistle hollers, rolling kalimba, rousing accordion, taut shimmers of guitar, caustic fiddle and lyrics – that could have been hidden amongst the dusty inner groove of a lost Harry Smith 78 – weaving in and out of streams of consciousness, time and place. White was a member of well-loved punk bluegrass outfit Bad Livers, but his solo work is possessed of a much more lonesome spark, exaggerating the implied drone at the heart of the music of Dock Boggs and The Stanley BrothersWhite plays wooden six-string banjo, violin, button accordion and kalimba and his voice has a high, eerie quality to itextremely psychedelic. –David Keenan, The Wire