Joseph Decosimo creates a meditative Appalachian mood with his new single ‘Glory in the Meetinghouse’. This fiddle tune is noted as one of the songs that roots music archivist Alan Lomax recorded Luther Strong playing. The percussion induces an instant trance-like feeling that is met with a gentle drone that the rest of the band burns over. Known for his work with Hiss Golden Messenger, Decosimo has assembled a stellar ensemble featuring Andy Stack (Helado Negro, Wye Oak), horn player Kelly Pratt (Beirut, David Byrne), Mipso and Fust’s Libby Rodenbough, Joseph O’Connell (Elephant Micah), and trad/experimental artist Cleek Schrey.
Decosimo reflects on the track, “There’s a heaviness in some of these old tunes that draws the mind into shadowy, interior places. This piece utilizes an unusual fiddle tuning that adds to the effect, while the circular nature of this fiddle music intensifies things. We were exploring this intensity in our arrangement. I feel a similar intensity in the source recording from which I learned Glory in the Meetinghouse. It’s a 1937 field recording that Alan Lomax made of fiddler Luther Strong in Buckhorn, Kentucky. The story goes that on the morning of the field recording session, Lomax had to go to Strong’s bail, springing him from the jail in Hazard after a charge of public drunkenness, so he could play his fiddle tunes for Lomax. Strong powered through any hangover and recorded 29 brilliant pieces for Lomax that day. It’s some of the finest fiddling I’ve heard and is filled with this fierce, unsettled edginess. Strong’s fiddling has always drawn me in, and it was exciting to explore it afresh in the context of this project.”
‘Glory in the Meetinghouse’ is pulled from the full-length ‘Fiery Gizzard’ album, available now on Dear Life Records.
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Ed Donnelly is a multi-instrumentalist, recording engineer and record producer from Los Angeles. He has worked with Willie Nelson, Crowded House, Marc Cohn, Jools Holland, Matchbox Twenty, The Cult, BoyHaunt, Gladys Knight, Trent Summar and The West Coast Mob, Smashing Pumpkins, Del McCoury, OK Go, Exodus, Molly Leach, Tom Morello, O.A.R., Madness, The Crystal Method, DrunkHungry, Deadmau5, Zac Brown, CrysP Tyger, Bighead Todd and the Monsters, Jake Shimabukuro, Barenaked Ladies, Tsar, Killola and more. Donnelly regularly performs with Nathan Jacques as well as Little Silver Hearts and records with GhostsDream. Little known fact: He previously held Top Secret Security Clearance with the U.S. Department of State and Q Clearance from the Department of Energy.
He currently runs The Barber’s Basement Recording Studio in Highland Park and is a partner in The Atmos at Lemontree Studio.
