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It’s not new for the sub-rosa guitar hero Steve Gunn to jam with Virginian modern old tymers, The Black Twig Pickers. In fact, it’s happened before in sessions and on records with both The Black Twig Pickers and with individual members like Mike Gangloff and Nathan Bowles. The collaboration continues with Seasonal Hire, which leads Gunn and co. further down the interpretive rabbit hole.
The LP begins with “Dive for the Pearl,” a gratifying trip through Appalachia by way of cottony banjo, fiddle and guitar. Charlie Poole and His North Carolina Ramblers get The Twig Pickers treatment on “Don’t Let Your Deal Go Down” and Gunn adds some roaming vocals to his own composition “Trailways Ramble,” which first showed up as an instrumental on his landmark album Time Off in 2013.
The sprawling title track “Seasonal Hire” closes out this beautiful and nomadic collaboration by mixing delta sounds with modern drones and embellishments, all with the use of folk instrumentation. It’s a fitting conclusion to what I am sure is not their last work together. Seasonal Hire starts and finishes seemingly in continuum, as if it had been always there and always will be.
