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The Devil Knows How

by Derek Piotr

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1.
Yes, They All Sing 02:54
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2.
Old Lady And The Devil 04:01
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3.
Hold Up Your Hand, Old Joshua! She Cried 04:59
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4.
How Can I Keep From Crying 02:06
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5.
Lily Shull 02:21
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6.
Ellen Smith 05:16
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7.
They'd Sing Old Songs, and They'd Sing The New Ones 01:50
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8.
Message Written on the Tombstone for 3½-year-old Ephriam Stipe, Died 1826 00:43
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9.
George Collins 02:08
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10.
Lee Mills 03:29
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about

Building on the monumental pivot that was 2021’s Making and Then Unmaking, Derek Piotr interprets traditional ballads and folk tunes, culled primarily from the repertoire of his honorary new family (Lena Bare Turbyfill and her kin). The result is stripped-down old-time lifted up by its roots. Only two pieces here are original works: “Yes, They All Sing”, featuring the speaking voice of Lena Bare Turbyfill, and “They’d Sing Old Songs, and They’d Sing the New Ones” featuring the speaking voice of Nicola “Aunt Nicky” Pritchard (Turbyfill), link mother and daughter in their explanation of family singing tradition.

The rest of this collection offers ragged scraps of pedal steel hanging in thin air, brittle acoustic guitar backbones, and densely stacked harmony vocals. Piotr worked on this project with longtime friend Scott Solter (The Mountain Goats, Spoon), and the pair gave tape grain the sommelier treatment, pulling from Solter’s extensive background in black-magicked tape and wire recording techniques. The result is an album that hews closer to a field-recording repository than a studio document, with the actual medium of the recorded message varying wildly in fidelity, from tame warmth to feral hiss. This process allowed some of the tracks to go beyond feral, and they were then professionally restored by Stephan Mathieu as... more
credits
releases May 13, 2022

credits

released May 10, 2022

Mastered by Rashad Becker.
Produced and arranged by Derek Piotr, except where noted.
Cover photo by Cal Evan.
Derek wears Tru-West Rockmount Ranch Wear, crochet by Matty Bovan.
Design, logo and Devil Lines by Derek Piotr.
Photograph of the tombstone of Ephriam Stipe by Sarah Bryan.
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Gourd Bloomington, Indiana

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