Marisa Anderson Releases Harry Smith Global Folk Album
SkimNews Take
Anderson's project, by reframing "un-American" as a global folk tapestry rather than a political label, implicitly critiques the narrow, conflict-driven narratives often dominating international news.
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- Marisa Anderson spent 2023 accessing Harry Smith’s shuttered archives and uncovered hours of non‑American folk recordings, which she arranged into a nine‑track album.
- Harry Smith’s original 1952 Anthology of American Folk Music inspired the project, but the new album draws from his lesser‑known collections of Southeast Asian, Soviet, and Arabic music.
- Gisela Rodríguez Fernández contributes violin on the Afghan “Sarvi Simin” and collaborates with Anderson on the Yemeni “Zar,” both featuring inventive note‑rearrangements without repetition.
- Marisa Anderson adapts the Uzbek “Quodlibet” by adding bluegrass techniques to compensate for her guitar’s inability to play quarter‑tones, creating a minor‑key medley originally performed on the dambura.
- Marisa Anderson reinterprets the Armenian “Pair of Duduk” using reverb‑heavy guitar and bassy synths, and the Vietnamese “Whistle Song” on electric piano, highlighting the album’s cross‑cultural minimalism.
- Marisa Anderson’s liner notes question how porous far‑flung musical cultures are, suggesting contemporary classical composers may have been influenced by the same recordings.
Why it matters: World‑music listeners and scholars gain unprecedented access to rare folk recordings from regions shaped by U.S. conflicts, while the release revives Harry Smith’s lesser‑known archive and demonstrates the permeability of cultural boundaries, encouraging further cross‑cultural exploration. It also highlights the adaptability of contemporary musicians, who blend traditional sounds with modern instrumentation, potentially inspiring new collaborations and recordings.
