On the Playlist 4JUN2019…

Listening to a very interesting album today by Abigail Washburn and Shanghai Restoration Project called "Afterquake". Going to be a bit of a story here on this one. First of all Abigail Washburn is a folk banjo player. She was also an exchange student to China and studied folk music in China. So she has connections within China. Shanghai Restoration Project (I am a huge fan and can't believe I haven't referred to it more in these posts) consists of David Liang who is based in NY but does a lot of work in China. He is an electronic artists who collaborates with various musicians and incorporates traditional Chinese sounds into his music. So that is the background to the artists here. This album is a collection of music from Sichuan province exploring themes about and after the large earthquake that happened there a couple years back. This is important because that earthquake for a whole host of reasons has not got a lot of global attention. So these two artists have collaborated to produce an album exploring those themes and using found sounds from the region and the people affected by the quake itself. A portion of the proceeds from this album is being donated to quake relief charities. The music on this album is haunting especially when the themes being explored are considered. A good listen and even better if you take the time to look up the background to the music while listening to it.

Abigail Washburn and the Shanghai restoration Project - Afterquake