Well, here we are, on the inelegantly and easily misconstrued hump day afternoon, wondering once more when, oh when, oh when will Americana UK bring us a new instrumental track to ease our cares and slide us just a few minutes nearer to that Shangri-La we call the Weekend? We don’t like to disappoint you, and so we won’t, because today we have a new single from Vaiano’s Paisanos, taken from their self-titled debut album, which is out on May 1st on Jalopy Records.
Vaiano’s Paisanos is a string band, founded by Rachel Meirs (violin, mandolin); Maxwell Apra(mandolin, tenor banjo, tenor guitar); and Van Burchfield (guitar)—which sometimes balloons to a quintet, thanks to Quentin Bardinet (mandolin, tenor banjo, tenor guitar) and Albanie Faletta (guitar). Something they do differently to others in the string band sphere is to draw their inspiration from the immigrant music of a century or more ago: “Almost everything in our repertoire was originally recorded in New York City,” explains Meirs. “It’s not that we chose to play immigrant music; it’s that we come from a society largely made up of immigrants, and this music is a beautiful byproduct of that melting pot, as are we.”
