Local Folk Catches the Genre’s More Experimental Side POSTED:: January 15, 2010
FILED UNDER::
Concerts
FILED UNDER:: Concerts
Current folk has been going the way of experimental for a while, and current ‘experimental’ folk rock conjures up references to artists such as Megafaun, Bon Iver and Alela Diane. This experimentation still renders the genre as traditional in the sense that it utilizes the original storytelling songwriting roots, and leaves the compositions both vocal and guitar-centric, as folk songs have always been. It veers into the untraditional in the sense that the instrumentation is more diverse, the composition more drawn out and filled with loops, samples, fuzz and feedback.
Milwaukee currently has a diverse cache of folk artists, traditional and experimental, alike. Many of them have banded together, trading band mates, ideas and playing shows together. Such is the case tonight, as local folk bands The Maze,the Vega Star and Hayward Williams get set to perform at Shank Hall tonight. This isn’t the flower folk of the ’60s, nor storytelling mountain ballads — expect to see pianos and saws, use of loop pedals and fresh stories that will hit close to home, not only because they’re local, but current as well.
In a recent interview with Joshua Miller of the Shepherd Express, Rob Hansen, guitarist/vocalist of The Maze explained, “‘[Our music has] always been folk-based, but we’ve always done little twists here and there—maybe instead of a guitar I’ll play a ukulele and maybe the drummer will not play the drums and instead play the saw. The band name kind of suits it because not even we know what we’re going to do sometimes.’”
Catch the musical twists and turns of the folk music that is the Maze, as they play alongside the Vega Star and Hayward Williams at Shank Hall (1434 N. Farwell) tonight at 8 p.m. 21+.