New album - American Railroad

My first full length album with the Silk Road Ensemble

Greetings from the road. I have been on tour with the amazing Silk Road ensemble for the last couple of weeks and this tour is coming to an end with our show on Saturday 23rd of November at BAM in Brooklyn.

We are touring a show called “American Railroad”, a program conceived by our artistic director Rhiannon Giddens that looks at the construction of the railroad in the United States of America in the 19th century, and narrates about the people who actually built it, especially the ones who are often left out of the history books. So the immigrant communities that were used as labour for the realisation of the ultimate capitalist dream take centre stage in this production, especially the Chinese, Japanese and Irish workers, the African American convicts, but also the native population who got violently disrupted and affected by the construction of the railway.

This is a multi-year project with various large ensemble tours, smaller groups concerts, a tv series and a podcast series. You can read more about the whole project at Silkroad page

On nov 14th 2024 the album recorded live during a 2023 west coast tour came out on nonesuch records. You can listen to and buy the album on Nonesuch website

Here is a preview on Spotify

MUSICIANS
All songs performed by Silkroad Ensemble
Rhiannon Giddens, Voice (2-3, 5, 8, 10, 12-13), Fiddle (2), Banjo (3, 5) 
Pura Fé , Conch (1), Lap-steel Guitar (5, 12), Voice (5, 8, 12-13) 
Sandeep Das, Tabla (2, 5-8, 10, 12-13) 
Haruka Fujii, Percussion (2, 4-5, 7-8, 10, 12-13) 
Francesco Turrisi, Frame Drums (2, 8), Accordion (4, 5, 7, 10, 12-13) 
Kaoru Watanabe, Ojime-daiko (2, 5, 7-8, 10-13), Shinobue (5, 10, 12), Shime-daiko (5, 7-8, 12-13), Uchiwa-daiko (5, 7-8, 12-13), Kagura-suzu (5), Kakegoe (11)
Wu Man, Pipa (3- 5, 8, 10, 12-13) 
Shawn Conley, Bass (4-5, 7, 9-10, 12-13) 
Karen Ouzounian, Cello (4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 12-13), Voice (8, 13) 
Mazz Swift, Violin (4- 5, 7, 9, 10, 12), Voice (5, 8, 12-13) 
Niwel Tsumbu, Guitar (4, 5, 7, 10, 12-13) 
Michi Wiancko, Violin (4-5, 7-10, 12-13), Voice (5, 13) 
Yazhi Guo, Suona (5, 7- 8, 10, 13), Chinese Percussion (5)

PRODUCTION CREDITS
Produced by Rhiannon Giddens, Jody Elff, and Kaoru Watanabe
Engineered by Jody Elff
Recorded at Green Music Center in Sonoma, CA and Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley, CA
Mixed by Jody Elff at Home Studio
Mastered by Jody Elff at Home Studio

Album Design by Maya Bouvier-Lyons
Cover adapted from design by Dan Ichimoto
 

Hope to catch you on the road soon!