Ancestor is one of the most extraordinary and unusual records I have listened to so far this year.
It’s mountain music, but it’s modern mountain music. The songs are still about love and loss, but the sound evokes a dreamy opiate-induced haze rather than a whiskey-fueled blues bender.
The man behind it is by Stone Jack Jones, originally from Buffalo Creek, WV. He comes from four generations of coal miners, but he’s a wanderer. Now based in Nashville, he’s – to quote his bio – “been a carny, an escape artist, a ballet dancer, a professional lute player, and even owned a late night performance art club in Atlanta.”
And he’s taken all of those experiences and channeled them into songs like O Child:
And State I’m In, which sounds like the end of a long night:
But there are bursts of sweetness too, such as this tune, aptly named Joy: