Hard Drive – Random Access Mash
Self Released – Out Now
With gleefully scattergun-cartoonish album art adorning the digipack, it’s difficult to know quite what to expect from this four-piece outfit, beyond the hint that it might just involve bluegrass of some kind. And that’s only really after a glance at the band lineup of Hard Drive, which comprises fiddler extraordinaire Tatiana Hargreaves, banjoist Aaron Tacke (of Steam Machine), guitarist Sonya Badigan and bass-man Nokosee Fields (of Western Centuries). Those who know Tatiana’s current musical partnership with clawhammer banjoist Allison De Groot (reviewed here) will be enthused anew by her sparky, fiery solo work here, as well as her able and confident musical interplay with fellow band-members, none of these being exactly a slouch in their own department; I was especially taken with Nokosee’s inspired bass work.
The relevant websites describe Hard Drive as “a hard-driving aural modern traditional old-time authentic millennial bluegrass collective”, so maybe that should tell you all you need to know in preparation for what I’m guessing is their debut CD. Its nominal title, R.A.M., would appear to stand for Random Access Mash, but I’ll have to admit that the overall significance of this eludes me, even given the band’s stated penchant for silliness and their tendency to “float gently around a Bermuda-Triangle-type space/time warp that connects North Carolina, Oklahoma and Minnesota”, while “they are constantly expanding at the approximate pace of the universe”.
So all is not quite what it seems, and you’ll discover that the opening track (Intuitions) is an oddball half-minute slice of mock-metaphysical psychobabble intoned in pseudo-didactic fashion. Following which, a vocal fade intro then ushers in a succession of ten acutely hard-driven cuts in the approved high-octane bluegrass-old-time style, delivered with deep intuitive insight, manic exploratory zeal and seriously powerhouse instrumental (and vocal) chops but also, importantly, with an abundant and overwhelming sense of fun. These guys sure are having a good time, and they drive you right along there with them.
From what I can tell or assume (there being no credits given on the package), the set-list consists almost exclusively of traditional or neo-traditional oldtime/bluegrass/country repertoire: mostly instrumentals – breakdowns, reels, waltzes and raging fiddle tunes, with some vintage ragtime and a custom-made stomp thrown in for good measure. The ensemble playing is as solid as the expert lick-trading, and Nokosee’s use of arco bass technique to really drive the music hard along makes numbers like Combination Rag both irresistible and highly repeatable. I had the latter cut on repeat play immediately, along with the disc’s slackest-paced item Alma’s Waltz which contains some delicious tremolo fiddle passages and a gorgeous lilting sway.
Just three of the tracks – Big Spike Hammer, the cutely-harmonised Where Is My Sailor Boy? and the gloriously raw, rough-house Bravest Cowboy – feature (female) vocals, and Goin’ Up Caney incorporates a vocal refrain.
But the straight-ahead hard-driving flow of the disc is interrupted twice. First midway, where the stonking Bravest Cowboy yields to a curiously appealing lounge-disco-electronica treatment of the same tune in its final minute. And then on the closing track, which, though entitled Bob Wills Stomp, somewhat incongruously surrounds the band’s (slightly gentle) rendition of that tune with a minute or so of white-noise/static and, as coda, more of the “intuitional” mock-metaphysical instruction whence the disc began. Sorry guys, but I still don’t get it – or are you harbouring a desire to create a slightly eccentric concept-album just in case listeners might get bored with the hardcore hard-driven bluegrass? (No chance of that, IMHO!)