Sarah Louise
Field Guide
Sarah Henson learned to play guitar and banjo at the foot of the black mountains in North Carolina. That's how the press text I've found, starts. Under the name Sarah Louise, she released two beautiful folk albums and especially her latest release Field Guide is first and foremost a great fingerstyle, solo guitar album. In some songs she sings, but it's all centered around 12 string solo guitar compositions.
Her music is definitely colored by the land and the nature that surrounds her (at least that's what I know about Ashville, NC and the Blue Ridge Mountains). I imagine a creek that tumbles down the hills, glistening in the sun. That's what her guitar playing sounds like. That's probably why she named it Field Guide.
More than anything, these songs are a reflection of my home in the Black Mountains of North Carolina: smooth-stone creek bottoms, delicate lunar-born mushrooms beneath rhododendron boughs, extreme changes in elevation. Two of the songs have a deep history with these mountains, beginning hundreds of years ago when connection to the land was common. Abstraction and repetition of elements in these songs, along with original 12-string guitar and vocal compositions, add a new layer of history. Neglected as an integral part of Appalachian music, drone makes reappearances. Raga-like structures and ornamentations reveal similarly old connections between the sacred nature-based music of East and West. I hope some of the old magic in these hills comes through.
Highly recommended and you are free to buy it or just grab it for a warm handshake.
Edit: This review was originally made for her first release of Field Guide, before it came out on Scissor Tails. It contained slightly different versions. Find her bandcamp page here.
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