- jackenwaters
Banjo with the sound of its own making

Here's a banjo-making project that is seeing the light of day today - when I built my first mountain banjo at the end of 2019 / start of 2020, I recorded audio of the whole process. After finishing the build, I layered up and manipulated those recordings, and as I got to know the banjo I recorded improvisations over the top. Those pieces are now collected together and released as a tape on Fractal Meat Cuts, and I'm very excited to share them! I'm really happy with the way that the workshop sounds and the sounds of the banjo blend, and I hope it makes a nice showcase for one of my banjos, as well as working as an effective piece of music.

It's available as digital download, on cassette tape, and as an edition of 12 handmade wood blocks. At the end of the build I went back to the scrap bin and fished out pieces of oak, cherry, and walnut, to assemble into these blocks. They're each individually numbered, and finished and oiled on 5 of 6 sides, with the final side left rough and unworked.
It can be found here on Fractal Meat Cuts Or here on my own bandcamp page