Let’s test this thing, shall we? This one features our friend and Appalachian-dweller Dylan Shrader, who will be reviewing music in our upcoming first issue. We break the seal on our nifty music section with Shrader’s “Some Day” – recorded in a mountain cabin while in solitary (and voluntary) confinement. But he makes a better introduction than we do, so read on to the bottom and listen up for a treat.

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Dylan Shrader is a multi-instrumentalist whose addiction to southern traditional music began while a student at UNC-Chapel Hill, employed as an audio technician for the Southern Folklife collection. Drawing inspiration from the earliest commercial bluegrass, late 20’s hillbilly music, the folk revivalists, San Francisco rock and roll, Chess-era electric blues and anything else that seems to have that untamed sense of control, Shrader is currently seeking refuge in a hundred-year old cabin in the western North Carolina wilderness composing original songs, and improving his folk-troubadourdom. Expect him back on the vibrant North Carolina pickin’ circuit in the fall with the early-style bluegrass group the Ragweed Boys, a wealth of original singer-songwriter material and a number of other upcoming musical projects. This issue’s selections reflect a number of distinct veins in contemporary American string-based music.