Jake Schepps, banjo pioneer and trailblazer in the contemporary bluegrass scene, will release his latest album Entwined Jan. 27, to be performed live on his North American tour.
The latest album will features bold, new work by ingenious classical composers written for the quintessential bluegrass combo of banjo, mandolin, guitar, violin and bass and will be performed at an intimate evening show at Subculture in New York City Feb. 4. The show will highlight the album’s all-acoustic work by Schepps from contemporary-classical composers Marc Mellits, Matt McBane and Gyan Riley, as well as mandolinist-composer Matt Flinner.
Schepps reached out to musicians who have compelled him in the hopes that Entwined would make a big statement. The musicians all responded in their own unique ways.
Mellits’s reckless and highly rhythmic eight-part Flatiron and McBane’s five-movement Drawn translates traditional bluegrass instrumentation into the age of electronica. Riley’s Stumble Smooth combines free jazz, bluegrass, gypsy music and jagged modernism, which Schepps calls “the burliest piece of music I’ve ever worked on in my life.” Flinner rounds out the group with bluegrass-infused, classically-inspired modernism. The result is an album with beautiful Appalachian tones but also bold, thrilling, new textures.
In concert, in addition to album material, the Jake Schepps Quintet will play bluegrass classics, Swedish polkas and music by Béla Bartók. The concert will feature Schepps on banjo, Flinner on mandolin, Jordan Tice on guitar, Ryan Drickey on violin and Andrew Small on double bass.
For more information or to purchase tickets for the show at SubCulture, click here.
