Lost and Found by Dylan McCarthy

I was walking across the Rockygrass festival grounds this past summer during the mandolin finals, talking with people, taking photos and such, far enough from the stage that I couldn’t see who was playing. What I could hear though was clear and precise playing, no notes lost in a flurry of overly fancy pyrotechnics and I remember saying to someone “That’s the winner right there”. Of course it was Dylan McCarthy and of course he won. If there was an award for crafting beautiful melodies and making it all seem completely effortless, McCarthy would win that one too.

In the liner notes Dylan McCarthy cites the inspiration of progressive bluegrass and new acoustic artists and this recording is completely at home in the genre that has grown and blossomed in the years since those first David Grisman Quintet and New Grass Revival albums were released. It occurs to me that we’re in the midst of an important transition in new acoustic music, a passing of the torch (or mandolin) as it were.

Most of the artists commonly associated with the genre started out inspired primarily by the first generation bluegrass artists and in many cases often played with them. Dylan McCarthy is part of the generation that grew up with “Hot Dawg” as a primary building block in their musical upbringing. In the same way bluegrass music wasn’t really a fully formed genre until others started copying the sound of the Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys, what we’re calling New Acoustic Music is just now coming of age as young artists like McCarthy are taking the blueprints created by David Grisman, Sam Bush, or Bela Fleck and creating something new. If this album is a harbinger of things to come we’re entering a new renaissance of acoustic music.

And what is this “something new”? In the case of this album, it’s melody driven improvisational acoustic music with an accent on the melody. We’ve all been amazed by the technical virtuosity on display in the bluegrass and new acoustic music world. There are plenty of instrumental tracks available that are non-stop displays of lightning riffs that stop you in your tracks. I’ll admit to being more impressed by strong melodies that stop you in your tracks where the playing seems effortless and perfectly suited to the melody, something this recording has in abundance.

Dylan McCarthy is joined by the best in west as it were, some of Colorado’s finest - Eric Wiggs on guitar, Bradley Morse playing bass, Sam Armstrong-Zickefoose on banjo, dobro from Allen Cooke alongside Natalie Padilla and Justin Hoffenburg on fiddle. The assembled pickers play together like a seasoned band and that should be no surprise given the robust jam scene in Colorado, these folks have indeed played together for years.

This album is superbly crafted from start to finish. The playing of the individual pickers, and more importantly the way they play together is flawless. The production is excellent as well but even though they give out awards for production, liner notes or graphic design nobody puts the disc in the CD player or streams the tracks again because of those features, it’s the melodies that bring you back and with this album the brilliantly composed and excellently played melodies will bring you back again and again.