We’re back ! This morning, we’re absolutely delighted to welcome Magic Tuber Stringband for MailTape’s first episode of the spring. Based in Durham, the band weaves itself into the Appalachian folk traditions, re-enchanting these practices with unexpected noise and experimental textures. Magic Tuber Stringband members Evan Morgan, Mike DeVito, and Courtney Werner join us following the release of their latest album, Needlefall.
The band is intricately intune with the acoustic environments around them, describing how the Appalachian soundscape is rich with sprawling ambient harmonies. Much of this attention is informed by the band’s fiddler, Courtney Werner, who also works as an acoustic biologist — tracking how the ecosystem’s soundscape feeds into itself in layers, from insects buzzing to frogs croaking to footsteps large and small. While some of these natural players are repetitive, others flash above rhythmic monotonies. The natural world’s music folds into the band’s creative process, and subsequently, sounds from the places they’ve lived in collect and reflect back into their albums, touchstones for experimental tonalities and textures.
Guest’s selection
Latin Playboys - Mustard
Magic Tuber Stringband: ” I just recently discovered the wonders of this little project, which I think I had always discounted because of its name. It’s got just about everything - field recordings, lo-fi production, hi-fi production, slick new blues tunes, half-baked fiddle jams, zany synth, glitchy guitar, spoken word, drum machines. No track sounds the same, but “Mustard” is one of my favorites, an infectious experiment in minimalist songwriting. By no means perfect records but that’s what makes them trips worth taking. - Evan Morgan (guitar, pump organ) “
Catherine Ribeiro + Alpes - Âme debout
Magic Tuber Stringband: ” Another recent discovery, sadly due to Ribeiro’s passing this past summer. The ballads are plaintive; Ribeiro’s voice is powerful but vulnerable, often venturing into extended techniques; the band sounds like Emmanuelle Parrenin jamming with Tangerine Dream. There’s a clear dedication to repetition and texture that I think we always hope to maintain in our own music. - Evan Morgan (guitar, pump organ) “
Baka Beyond / Baka Forest People - Venolouma
Magic Tuber Stringband: ” This track more or less has it all for me. Sonically, the three voices (strings, percussion, voice) interact with a dizzying complexity that doesn’t obscure the clarity of the whole. Each individual part is characterized by what seems to be strict repetition of motif with the allowance for variation. However, identifying any given motif proves to be difficult at times upon close listening, as the variations between repetitions are significant. I am particularly inspired by a musical approach that can preserve both of these aspects simultaneously, that is, strict repetition without a loss of organic improvisation, or organic improvisation without a loss of motivic thread. Perhaps most notable, this music feels deeply rooted in and contextualized by the place of its making, as well as the humanity of the specific musicians performing. Though the intricacy of its construction is superlative, it is the emotional response that the music provokes that makes this track stand out to me. - Mike DeVito (bass, banjo) “
Curator’s selection
Magic Tuber Stringband - Piney Woods Burn
Sarah: ” This track arrives from the band’s most recent album, Needlefall. Try to listen with headphones :) Between whirring eeriness and traditional fiddle sounds, the track threads carefully across dissonance, drones, and folk oriented moments. We are welcomed into a soundscape that not only brushes traditions, but embraces both the natural acoustic stage and its own evolving experimentation. As with several tracks on the Needlefall album, a rich tapestry is created before us, one that weaves in flowing improvisations and also those smaller, sparser noises that catch soft as velvet on our ears. “
Qwalia - Omega
Sarah: ” From the London-based improv jazz quartet’s most recent album, Abbreviations. This drumline takes us by the hand, guiding our footsteps alongside the see-sawing hedges of psychedelic synthwork and these gorgeous, spiking basslines. “
Magic Tuber Stringband - Ghost Pipe
Sarah: ” Another one from Magic Tuber Stringband, this one from their 2023 album, Tarantism. Once again, these microtonalities craft a delightfully unexpected and contemplative world within the track. We grow into these unconventional sounds until they become eerily hypnotic. As we tread deeper, the track wanders seamlessly into its own momentum — a spiraling bloom of energy, and just like that, we’re soaring :) “
Weirs and Magic Tuber Stringband - Tunnel
Sarah : ” Give yourself the gift of listening, or rather breathing in, this track — it’s Sunday after all :) Recorded live to tape in the pitch black Virginia Crozet Rail Tunnel, new senses awaken at each turn. The sounds of the cave dripping, of coughs and laughing, of muddy footsteps shuffling all become like collaborators in the track. The cave carries, cradles, and bends the musicians’ voices and instruments, stretching dissonances and harmonies into echoes and rumblings too. With fiddle, gong, shruti box, moth harp, vocals, Weissenborn, and percussives, magic unravels in the dark. ”
That’s all for this morning, thank you for joining us :) Our love to Magic Tuber Stringband for their electric selection, and to Noémie Dijon for this episode’s beautiful illustration. Until next time :)
