A couple of months ago I stumbled onto Abigail Washburn by looking up Bela Fleck videos on Youtube. She's an American banjo player and singer but much of her music has Chinese influence and that can really be heard on the Mandarin-language songs and in the melodies and harmonies of songs like "Great Big Wall in China." The quartet is made up of Abigail on vocals and banjo, Bela Fleck on banjo, Casey Driessen on violin, and Ben Sollee on cello. The music itself is really intricate with plenty of interesting harmonies and melodies, wandering time signatures, and so on and yet it still manages to be catchy. My favourite's "A Fuller Wine." I found it harder to get into the songs she sings in Mandarin but the instrumentals are extremely breath-taking, particularly the "Overture" that opens the album. Happy listening!
-Andy
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