Guitarist Bill Frisell takes you to the Cumberland Gap with this album that features the voice of Petra Haden, teaming together with Hank Roberts on cello and vocals, with the addition of Luke Bergman on guitar, baritone guitar, bass and vocals. The collection of songs are slow, patient, spacious and mix traditional folk sounds with dark misty shadows.
Frisell’s tone is particularly thick and echoey this time around, ambling along on with Haden on “Fifty Years” and creating droplets on “Curiosity.” Haden sometimes simply brings “La Las” to the tunes, such as the eerie “Everywhere,” the rootsy “Lonesome” and “Honest Man.” Haden also gives some Carter Family moods as the gents add harmonies to “Red River Valley” and the patient “God’s Winged Horses.” Dark melancholic colors hover for “Deep Dead Blues” and the languid “There In A Dream.” Most intriguing is a take of Billy Strayhorn’s “Lush Life” and spending more than half the time on the slowly undualating introduction, painstakingly taking slow and plodding steps through the reflective lyrics.Like a musical version of Henry Fonda in The Grapes of Wrath.