Alexander

***Aside from spending the last couple summers teaching music on a remote New England island, David Alexander Shapiro has spent the rest of his time playing with various New Haven heads such as Headroom and Center, as well as accompanying the legendary Kath Bloom at local and various regional tours.

To showcase his unique style on a variety of stringed instruments, David presents here, a side of banjo tracks, and a side of mandolin tracks. Continuing on his long tradition of untitled, or barely titled, releases and songs, this release only includes the information banjo side and mandolin side. You can figure out the rest.

For the banjo side, one can hear vague echos of Billy Faier's Banjo record on Takoma and the Labyrinths LP by George Stavis from 1969 minus the occult trappings. Avoiding the usual bluegrass hammering of the instrument, opting for almost-classical style melodies, with sweet nostalgia. For the mandolin side, these somewhat looping, dream-like tracks can be compared to the sweeter mandolin passages by Ray Jackson on the early 70's records by Newcastle based band Lindisfarne. Beautiful, descending arpeggios, visualize floating dust in the rays of sunlight, projected late in the day.