Nathan Bowles Trio

A spark-throwing, undulating fusion of styles played (mainly) on banjo, upright bass and drums.

The individual perspectives of Nathan, doublebassist Casey Toll (Jake Xerxes Fussell, Mt. Moriah) and drummer Rex McMurry (CAVE) work together in an easy-rolling manner, but one that contains an expansive, ass-shaking confabulation of ideas. Nathan’s solo music-making explorations with the banjo are evidence of the range of possible places to go in the world while still in contact with one’s roots: clawhammer boogie, strummed, bowed and percussive techniques, original compositions and traditional tunes, all cutting a path between old-time Appalachian music and its long-lost cousin, ecstatic minimal drone. In conversation with Rex and Casey’s own conceptions, with guitar, bass, mellowtone, keyboards, drums and percussion aboard, he continues to ride toward new vistas.

Their diversity of sources moves easily within the arrangements, rendering a far-ranging set of feels, from transcendental to new country funk to good ol’ jazz and the folk-rock - all of it drawn out exquisitely when they mixed at Electrical Audio in Chicago with the delicate hands of Cooper Crain upon the faders.