New North Carolina Folk Music as a Gentle Reminder that Nature’s Not Closed

We foraged a basket of fresh local folk music so you can get a dose of nature without leaving quarantine.

NATHAN VINCENT now lives in Austin, Texas, but his Cedar and Pine EP, forthcoming on April 24, is a time capsule of when he lived in the Triangle and drew inspiration from North Carolina’s natural splendor.

Advance single “Blue Ridge State” is admittedly inspired by Bon Iver, and Vincent wears the influence well, with his warm yet mysterious voice set in a shuddering, blossoming art-folk arrangement. It’s calm and cool yet it gets under your skin, and we’re excited for the EP. Keep an ear on this one: 

If you prefer streams to mountains, the Piedmont Americana trio THE RIVER OTTERS have released an instrumental raft-ride down their favorite rural Orange County waterway, Old Field Creek. 

Robinson Lee Earle, David Barrett, and Michael Buckley are “deeply enamored with our landscape (the rural buffer in between Durham, Hillsborough, and Chapel Hill) and pay homage to it through music,” Earle says. “We want to offer some sonic relief to people and encourage them to experience safe/remote locations in nature.”

The three-song EP is front-porch ready, from the laze and drift of the title track to the lonesome groove of “Lament”:

GRAND SHORES is a duo from Chapel Hill and Pittsboro that consists of Gabriel Pelli, a fiddle player who’s worked with the likes of The Old Ceremony and Squirrel Nut Zippers, and Will Ridenour, a kora player from Diali Cissokho & Kaira Ba. They met through Paperhand Puppet Intervention’s band, connected through their love of American folk and West African kora music, and spent years performing for UNC Hospitals patients through a grant program. So the healing power of their bright, breezy instrumentals and songs is pre-tested. Their first album, Tradewinds, comes out May 2 on Robust Records, but it’s already streaming and on pre-order. It’s a real vibe.

Speaking of Squirrel Nut Zippers: This Friday, April 17, from 6:00-7:00 p.m., Hillsborough cocktail bar Yonder is livestreaming a concert by KATHARINE WHALEN, who rose to alt-rock fame in the ’90s with Chapel Hill pop-jazz band Squirrel Nut Zippers, who were the subject of an INDY oral history several years ago. After SNZ, her jazz stylings widened to include folk and blues, and she’ll be performing jug-band music with Danny Grewen, and Austin Riopel. 

Contact arts and culture editor Brian Howe at bhowe@indyweek.com.

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