>NMAS 006: The Fries Session reviewed in Bluegrass Unlimited (April 2020)
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This session came about in May 2016 with a phone call from Stevie Barr of Barr's Fiddle Shop in Galax, Va., to local artist Eddie Bond. Barr told Bond that people from Never Met A Stranger Records (NMAS) were in town looking to do some recording. Bond subsequently gathered together Karen Carr (bass), Donald Hill (guitar), and Peco Watson (banjo). The group met with the NMAS crew at the local Fries Community Center and for the next couple of hours recorded what they felt was some vibrant old-time music.
Bond, who plays fiddle and sings on a couple of the cuts, selected a dozen familiar traditional tunes. Cuts include "Hell Among The Yearlings," "Sally Anne," "Forked Deer," "Lonesome Road Blues," "Arkansas Traveler," "New River Train," "Durang's Hornpipe," and "Reuben." As with many traditional old-time arrangements, the keys, kickoffs, and tempos sound quite similar, with the melody held by the fiddle lead. Bond's vocals are limited to "Lonesome Road Blues" and "New River Train," but the arrangements are still held to focusing on the melody versus the words. This project is a great example of old-time fiddling and playing. Never Met A Stranger Records is an organization based in Richmond, Va., and works between documentary and experimental practices in sound, video, photography, and printed material. (www.nevermetastranger.org) BF |
>NMAS 005: The Uncommitted reviewed by Shivaun Watchorn in Maximum RockNRoll (February 2020)
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MAXIMM ROCKNROLL ISSUE #441 (February 2020)
Shivaun Watchorn The UNCOMMITTED is a solo project of Tim Freeborn, the former singer of Ontario’s SONS OF ISHMAEL, who released one of my favorite EPs of biting juvenile thrash with 1985’s Hayseed Hardcore. Freeborn, now an English professor, improbably weaves lap steel solos into fourteen minutes of otherwise fairly straightforward hardcore, which begins to make sense when you consider his labelmates on Richmond’s Never Met A Stranger label/art imprint—all folk and bluegrass.e to edit. Read the full review here. |
>NMAS 005: The Uncommitted reviewed by Noel Gardner in The Quietus (February 2020)
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Noel's Straight Hedge: Punk & Hardcore In Review For February
Column closer and cockle-warming curio is this self-titled LP by The Uncommitted, a project by Tim Freeborn of London, Ontario. Tempted, in fact, to say ‘solo project’, although there are four people credited on the insert; none are names one would expect to find on a birth certificate, and Never Met A Stranger, who released this, talk of its whipspeed 40-second blazes in a way that suggests it’s Freeborn’s baby alone. This ain’t hardcore-for-the-hardcore, though: apart from The Uncommitted, this label’s beat is Appalachian folk and related North American old timey music. The squalling lap steel solos dotted liberally across The Uncommitted may, therefore, be contextually relevant. Read the full article here. |
>NMAS 005: The Uncommitted reviewed by Nathan Brown in Louder Than War (January 2020)
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The Uncommitted
The Uncommitted (Never Met A Stranger) LP/DL Out Now Do you remember the Sons of Ishmael? They were a Canadian hardcore band who I can recall hearing on John Peel in the late 80s and I remember seeing their name on at least one UK distro list. Their Hayseed Hardcore 7″ even made it into Pushead’s Top 100 of the 80s listing in 1990 when he finally called it a day writing the Puszone feature for Thrasher skate magazine. Perhaps the peak of their fame? They delivered up fast short bursts of hardcore not too dissimilar to early DRI. This new project, The Uncommitted, features Tim Freeborn, vocalist of said Sons of Ishmael. The man has not mellowed with age! The shouty vocals are a continuation of his earlier work. The overall sound of The Uncommitted also bears some similarities to Sons of Ishmael but is in no way a carbon copy. They have short songs (20 in 14 minutes). Drums, guitar and bass all play at a sprint. [...] Read the full article here. |
>Dark Holler chosen by Michael Pattison as one of the best films in 2019 for Sight & Sound Magazine--British Film Institute (January 2020)
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The best films of 2019 – all the votes
We asked 100 contributors – British and international – to pick the ten best new films they’d seen in the past year. The top 50 list is here; |
>NMAS 002: Old Time Mountain Music & Other Songs reviewed by Emily Pothast in The Wire (April 2019)
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Never Met A Stranger Old Time Mountain Music & Other Songs Never Met A Stranger DL/LP Never Met A Stranger's Jeremy Drummond and David Poolman are multimedia artists whose works span drawing, printmaking, photography and film. For Old Time Mountain Music & Other Songs, the duo have gathered sonic vignettes embodying the living history of Appalachian folk music. "Galax" takes us on a quick dip in and out of a barn dance. "Flying Clouds" traces a familiar form with acoustic guitar before plunging the microphone underwater. "Down On A Lonesome-Heavy Hearted Hog" plays like a dusty 45 with a noisy skipping groove, making for a somewhat harrowing meta-listening experience on vinyl. Traditional songs are given disparate treatments. "lduema" is sung by a rough-edged vocal ensemble, while "Beulah Land/Betty" is hammered out by a power trio. Released in an edition of 500 with photographs and other archival materials, Old Time Mountain Music is an artefact and object that collaborates with the past in order to document it for the future. |
> Dark Holler reviewed by Ben Nicholson in Map Magazine (May 2019)
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[...} In some instances, this space was primarily explored on screen, as in Jeremy Drummond and David Poolman’s durational landscape piece, Dark Holler (2018). A static shot of Pine Mountain in Eastern Kentucky unfolds over the course of 30 minutes as mist rolls over the forested slopes and then recedes. The image is accompanied by a soundtrack comprising field recordings and environmental soundscapes regularly punctuated by re-interpretations of traditional music of central Appalachia. Drummond and Poolman are clearly interested in how culture emanates from space, and while the image may feel static, the mist begins to take on the aspect of the landscape exhaling this specifically localised music into the atmosphere. As it engulfs and dissipates, it becomes the breath of the place, creating a sense that our collective art is the naturally occurring by-product of our communal existence. [...]
Read the full article here. |
> Dark Holler reviewed by Jamie Dunn in The Skinny (June 2019)
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[...} Other installations we could have spent all day there. Two that were particularly appealing were situated in an old camping gear shop on the high street. The focus of Dark Holler from Never Met a Stranger (duo Jeremy Drummond and David Poolman) is a tree covered valley in Kentucky's Appalachia hills, as observed from Pine Mountain, one of the few peaks in the area not rich in coal deposits and so still standing, unlike its neighbouring hills in the mining ravaged area. Taking the form of a single, 30 minute static shot, the dynamism of the piece comes from the gently shifting landscape as a thick bank of mist rolls in and gently dissipates. The hypnotic durational piece is accompanied by a soundscape of field recordings punctuated by an eclectic soundtrack of traditional Appalachian music (including a rollicking version of the mountain man track from which the installation takes its title) that seem synched to the ever-changing view. [...]
Read the full article here. |
> NMAS 001: The Uncommitted reviewed by Anna Farr in Razorcake (July 2018)
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THE UNCOMMITTED: SELF TITLED CASSETTE TAPE The Uncommitted matches hardcore riffing with gruff, aggressive vocals and the instrumentation of a lap steel guitar. Despite the horrors one may expect from such a combination, this record was actually a relatively painless listen. The lap-steel wail tends to come through as an accentuation of apposite guitar riffing, and gets especially interesting in tracks like “Autosite/Parasite” and “John Brown’s Dream” as a medium for a more experimental sound that probably couldn’t be achieved with conventional instruments. The novelty is used wisely, and this is otherwise an angry and entertaining punk record for fans of gruff vocals. I enjoyed this release, and listeners into a little experimentation in a mix probably would too. –Anna Farr |
RICHMOND VA