Working at the intersection of traditional folk and ambient noise, Weirs is a collective based out of central North Carolina which operates on a non-hierarchical and ever-changing basis. Membership fluctuates from as little as two to well into double figures, but the band is always bound by a shared spirit. That is, the desire to carry the flame of traditional music, be that by resurrecting near-forgotten songs from obscurity or introducing fresh ideas and styles to breathe new life into the genre. In September 2023, a nine-strong iteration of Weirs—Oliver Child-Lanning, Justin Morris and Libby Rodenbough (who you might know as part of Fust and Sluice), joined by Evan Morgan, Courtney Werner, and Mike DeVito of Magic Tuber Stringband, as well as stalwarts Andy McLeod, Alli Rogers and Oriana Messer—headed to Diamond Grove, a small unincorporated area in Brunswick County, Virginia on the Meherrin River, where Child-Lanning’ family have lived and worked for centuries. Here, they set about recording the album which would take its name from that very place.
Coming this autumn via Dear Life Records, Diamond Grove is essentially this particular moment preserved in sound. A repertoire of classic songs so indebted to the particular conditions of the moment that they have never sounded quite the same before, and likely never will again. “We wanted Diamond Grove to be a record in the truest sense,” as Child-Lannin describes in the liner notes. “A living document of a specific time, place, and gathering of friends. Recorded in farmhouses, fields, and an abandoned silo, it channels the spirit of traditional music as a shared practice, alive with the sounds of its surroundings.”
The result owes more to musique concrète than the crisp, professional recordings of the folk revival. It is up for debate whether this represents a stylistic leap for the genre or a circle back towards an even older tradition, music delivered and enjoyed in situ. But to ponder whether Weirs exist in defiance or deference of their forebears is to miss the point completely. This is not an attempt to raze conventions, nor reproduce them. But rather imagine how folk could and should sound today. If the entirety of traditional music could be viewed as a series of specific moments threaded into a timeless whole, then with Diamond Grove, Weirs offer their own bead to add to the chain.
Album opener and lead single ‘I Want to Die Easy’ immediately invites the audience to step into this specific time and place. A song forever embedded within the environment in which it was created, both thanks to the ambient hum and insect chirps which form its rich backdrop, and the effect the acoustics of the dairy farm silo interior where it was recorded. Because while Weirs take inspiration from A Golden Ring of Gospel’s recording of the song, as preserved in the Folkways collection Sharon Mountain Harmony, their version swaps out the immaculate polish for something more rustic and organic. A hymn delivered not from the still air and stone of a cathedral but God’s own Earth. Where fellow contemporary traditionalists like Lankum and ØXN highlight the stark, foreboding tones of the genre to push towards the realm of folk horror, the Weirs sound is more in line with the work of Terrence Mallick. Songs heightened not by an emergent dread or the suggestion of the supernatural but rather an abundance of life itself. The humblest of details given the closest of attention and the latent beauty revealed.
Photo by Libby Rodenbough