Blake Hornsby – "Dogwood Dance" LP

(Ramble Records)

Australian import, limited edition black vinyl.

North Carolina artist Blake Hornsby’s wonderful fingerpicking, psych-folk album Dogwood Dance draws on the Appalachian Mountains in North Carolina, the fingerpicking of Takoma and the ragas of India.

"This is a solo guitar record that goes very much against the grain of this well established genre.

Hornsby, a guitarist located in Boone, NC, utilizes the texture of his instrument’s strings, unusual palm-muting, and at times, even some semi-percussive fingerpicking styles to create fantasias that are psychedelically-minded and far progressed from what you’d heard from the typical Takoma school of thought.

Shades of Peter Walker’s sound do occasionally shine through, but there are more resemblances to musicians outside of the guitar world. Take for instance the Ravi Shankar-esque “Yaman Kalyan.” Hornsby plays his instrument like a sitar on this epic-length track over a droning faux-sarod backdrop. He slashes at his strings along to a raga-like rhythm and flies all over the fretboard with lightning speed. He somehow even makes his guitar sound at times exactly like a sitar. It’s worth the price of admission alone." - Record Crates United