Marisa Anderson
Marisa Anderson shares ‘Sarvi Simin,’ the second single from “The Anthology of UnAmerican Folk Music, Vol. 1,” out May 22nd on Thrill Jockey. The track — an ecstatic duet between Anderson’s guitar and Gisela Rodríguez Fernández’s violin — interprets a piece from a 1977 Melodiya Records release, transcribed while Anderson travelled by bus through southern Mexico.
Marisa Anderson’s The Anthology of UnAmerican Folk Music, Vol. 1 draws from the late Harry Smith’s vast private collection to present nine guitar arrangements sourced from regions the US has been in conflict with since 1970. First single Taqsim for Guitar offers a meticulous reworking of a 1955 Syrian field recording — Anderson’s fretted instrument reaching, carefully, toward music it was never designed to hold.
