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Zoe & Cloyd Embrace Transformation on ‘Rebuild,’ Oct. 8, 2021

August 30, 2021

Zoe & Cloyd, Americana, folk, acoustic, fiddle, guitar, Organic Records, Syntax Creative - imageThough Rebuild, the new collection from Organic RecordsZoe & CloydNatalya Zoe Weinstein and John Cloyd Miller—is full of songs that relate to the unprecedented upheaval of a world-wide pandemic, the duo and their ace band (Bennett Sullivan, banjo and guitar; Kevin Kehrberg, upright bass) actually began recording for the project weeks before COVID-19 became front page news. Yet even in that first session, some of the themes taken up by these songs would make their appearances—perhaps because the ultimate challenges of the pandemic aren’t so much new ones as they are intensified versions of those long faced by hard-working people the world over. Like its predecessor, 2019’s I Am Your Neighbor, Rebuild is a clear-eyed yet heartfelt—and occasionally humorous—slice of folk music at its best, weaving personal experiences and social concerns into a tapestry that reflects the human condition. The album is now available for pre-order, add or save ahead of its October 8, 2021 release.

“The pandemic has touched everyone in some way and Rebuild emerged during this time period,” says Miller, who wrote or co-wrote most of the songs. “It is a theme that runs through the whole album, whether it’s the idea of rebuilding ourselves, our relationships and our societies, or something more subtle such as connections to place and our acceptance of change. Even the instrumentals evoke the idea of transformation out of the old and the inevitable rebuilding of a new reality.”

Blending authentically-derived bluegrass, old-time country, klezmer and folk sounds, Zoe & Cloyd have developed a powerful distinctive approach to arrangement that gives each of Rebuild’s songs—whether previously-or newly-released—just the right treatment, from the thoroughly contemporary bluegrass drive of the project’s first single, “Where Do You Stand,” to the gentle lilt of “Paper Crowns,” the traditional bluegrass beat of gospel radio favorite “That Home Far Away,” the Old World flavor of “Hoffman’s Hora/David’s Frailach”—the latter a tune discovered among the papers of Weinstein’s klezmer musician grandfather—and the wistful, memory-driven ballad, “Chestnut Mountain,” which recalls the farm owned by Miller’s bluegrass musician grandfather, the legendary Jim Shumate.

New highlights include another throwback to traditional bluegrass sounds in the humorously self-deprecating original, “Everything But Me,” a recently-composed instrumental (“Pan America”) that offers both waltz-time and up-tempo variations on a haunting melody, a grassy meditation on the power of collective spirit to transcend hardship (“Carry This Together”) and a beautifully restrained a capella version of a Jean Ritchie classic, “Now is The Cool of the Day” to close out the project.

With each song, whether heard for the first time or recollected as an already-discovered favorite, Zoe & Cloyd demonstrate an unsurpassed ability to create roots music that speaks to our time.

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