Today’s contribution to the “when we can it’s the Wednesday instrumental track” section comes from a musician of whom Béla Fleck has said “A new mature and poetic voice on the 5 string banjo. Beautiful compositions and a very nice touch.” And if it’s good enough for Béla, then it’s good enough for Americana UK. You’ll recall, no doubt, that we were pretty impressed by ‘Odes / Codes‘ the 2022 release by Max Allard – well this year he has released a 31 track collection on Bandcamp called ‘March Maxness‘ – it’s a tune for every day of the month. This is somewhat more unpredictable in its approach with a mix of banjo, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, bass, harmonium, mandolin, and features the occasional xylophone, drum brush, maraca, slide whistle or wine glass. Almost all instruments are played by Max, with an occasional guest appearance. And all are recorded using a condenser microphone and the recording software on Max’s laptop.
These tunes were originally recorded and released to his Patreon subscribers in March 2021 when Max was looking for ways to keep himself interested and in contact with those who were interested in his music. It acts now as a “timecapsule” back to those days of pandemic isolation and the variety of inspiration it brought to Max Allard. We’ve focused in, surprise surprise, on a particularly nice banjo piece which we think you’ll really dig, dear reader.
