Buster Sledge – Call Home (Heilo, 2022)
“Call Home,” the second album by the American-Norwegian trio Buster Sledge, released under the Heilo label in May 2022, showcases the group’s fervor for playing a diverse range of American music. The band’s all-original repertoire is a fusion of traditional and contemporary genres, featuring joyful country and bluegrass music with ambitious arrangements that prioritize lyrical storytelling.
Lead vocalist and songwriter Michael Barrett Donovan hails from northern California, where he blends personal experiences with country and folk music archetypes to create new themes that breathe life into classic song structures. Banjoist Mikael Jonassen, Norway’s first and only higher-education certified banjo player, began his musical journey playing exclusively fusion jazz on an electric banjo. He now focuses on Scrugg’s style of acoustic banjo and the playing of Bela Fleck, having taken several trips to the US to learn from masters of the craft.
Jakob Folke Ossum, a jazz-guitarist turned flat-picking aficionado, discovered the sound of acoustic flat-picking through Tony Rice and Bryan Sutton and taught himself through records and videos. The three musicians met in a bluegrass forum comment section after Donovan moved to Norway in 2019, and the rest is history.
In eleven tracks, Call Home pays tribute to renowned artists like Norman Blake, The Punch Brothers, Tim O’Brien, and John Hartford, with a sound that is slightly augmented and streamlined, thanks to the mixing board influence of Sjur Lyseid, who worked with the band in the recently relocated Globus Studio. The album’s artwork by William Hay depicts a rider overlooking a vast river valley in impressionistic swaths of color that complement the music’s overall mood.
The album’s instrumental lineup features fiddle, banjo, guitar, and three voices that come together to tell stories against an orchestral backdrop anchored in the acoustic music traditions of the United States. With Mikael Jonassen and Jakob Folke Ossum’s thorough appreciation for bluegrass music’s fundamentals, the album features clear melodies and harmony-singing, seen through the lens of trained jazz musicians.
All tracks on Call Home are composed by Michael Barrett Donovan, except for track 2, which is composed by Mikael Jonassen, with lyrics by Michael Barrett Donovan. Having previously self-recorded and self-released their debut album, Spirit, in 2020, Buster Sledge has performed on many stages in small venues in southern Norway, and their live shows are a must-see for fans of American roots music.
Buy Call Home
Author: Angel Romero
Angel Romero y Ruiz has dedicated his life to musical exploration. His efforts included the creation of two online portals, worldmusiccentral.org and musicasdelmundo.com. In addition, Angel is the co-founder of the Transglobal World Music Chart, a panel of world music DJs and writers that celebrates global sounds. Furthermore, he delved into the record business, producing world music studio albums and compilations. His works have appeared on Alula Records, Ellipsis Arts, Indígena Records and Music of the World.