3 out of 5

Label: VHF Records

Produced by: Black Twig Pickers?

17 tracks of downright pleasant folk music. And though it’s safe to say that Black Twig Pickers are the only band of this type in my collection, I’ve been exposed to enough ‘Americana’ and other generally accepted ‘folk’ acts to say that this group is the real deal: this is all fiddle, and banjo, and harmonica, and, yes, spoons, and when it’s listed as being recorded on ‘front porches and in front rooms,’ it’s quite easy to believe. Our three core musicians (Ralph Berrier Jr, Mike Gangloff, Isak Howell) share vocal duties, sticking to quite the traditional hoot n’ hollerin’ range and certainly no one making any moves to steal the show. (Indeed, I can’t very well tell the three singing voices apart…) That sense of homespun camaraderie permeates through North Fork Flyer, which helps give it an open-armed sense of accessibility; at no point does this feel like pastiche. And yet, amongst the short (mostly) classic ‘mountain raggas’ being reworked by our trio, there’s also plenty of room left for each player to breathe, and create a sense of identity that makes it clear that this is a unit of like-minded, eh, folk.

But again: this is the only band of this type in my collection. North Fork is absolutely pleasant to listen to, but I can’t very much pick out tracks that stand out greatly from the others, and ‘classic’ here translates to the same concept in blues or jazz: without the ear for nuance, you can just call it by its genre and know what it sounds like. So this sounds like folk music. It’s much more lively and listenable than I would have assumed – the sincerity of the performance gives it that – but having not hung out on those front porches, I can’t quite dive into much deeper criticism, positive or negative.