Five-piece Americana fusion group Appleseed Collective has grown from a batch of songs that guitarist Andrew Brown wrote when he was 14 years old into one of the most diverse acts to tumble out of Ann Arbor, Michigan in the last decade. The band's ornate songs resemble the group's namesake, budding from obtuse, petite compositions with the clacking of washboard, the ragtime hum of fiddle and gypsy guitar into fully fleshed-out Dixieland arrangements. Brown gives a complex answer when asked to describe the band's music.
"Pre-World-War-II fusion with a poetic-tilt? Progressive string swing? It's a dense amalgam of different influences and traditions through the interpretation of our personal contemporary songwriting styles," said Brown. "Some of our recent influences have been Django Reindhart, The Punch Brothers, Tom Waits, and Stevie Wonder."
Those influences, and a love for the individuality that traditional music allows, come together on the recently released, Young Love, an album with a personality all its own, combining sweet, innocent vocals and skilled and personified solos melted into heartwarming arrangements. The album transports listeners to the cool shade of a flowering fruit tree, lounging with an assorted collection of jamming porch musicians.
"I love acoustic music," said Brown. "And I love how old roots music, styles of swing, jazz, blues, country and bluegrass allow the individual players to express their personalities in their playing to contribute to the collective musical sound. We've always been a fan of music that puts you in a place, shows you a character, with themes and moods. That translates into our songwriting and arranging."
Appleseed Collective
9 pm. Tue., Sept 9
Volcanic Theatre Pub, 70 SW Century Dr.
$5.
