Gangstagrass occupies a lane that sounds unlikely on paper and surprisingly natural in practice. The collective blends bluegrass instrumentation with hip-hop rhythms, pairing banjo rolls and fiddle runs with sharp lyricism and boom-bap backbone.
Tharpe, a veteran of the gospel scene, has picked Knight out of a backing quartet the previous evening. Now she intends to teach her partner how to 'swing', to infuse Knight's religious repertoire with some nightclub rhythm and blues. Knight, the younger, more restrained church singer, is awestruck by Tharpe's musical adventurousness.
Nothing is impossible. That was Susan Alcorn's assessment of the potential of the pedal steel guitar, the peculiar instrument that she made her own. Alcorn passed away at 71 in January 2025 as possibly the world's pre-eminent pedal steel player, driven by a vision to bring as much out of it as possible and, in doing so, to gracefully apprehend and interpret whatever music caught her interest.
Open Reel Ensemble creatively transforms traditional folk instrument JIGAKKYU into a unique musical device by using analog synth sounds produced via bowing magnetic tape with bamboo sticks.
