House and Land is a two-person experimental Appalachian

old-time music Old-time music is a genre of North American folk music. It developed along with various North American folk dances, such as square dancing, clogging, and buck dancing. It is played on acoustic instruments, generally centering on a combination ...

band based in

Asheville, North Carolina Asheville ( ) is a city in, and the county seat of, Buncombe County, North Carolina. Located at the confluence of the French Broad and Swannanoa rivers, it is the largest city in Western North Carolina, and the state's 11th-most populous cit ...

. The band members are guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Sarah Louise Henson and fiddler/banjoist Sally Anne Morgan. Both musicians contribute to vocals. They have two albums, the self-titled ''

House and Land House and Land is a two-person experimental Appalachian old-time music band based in Asheville, North Carolina. The band members are guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Sarah Louise Henson and fiddler/banjoist Sally Anne Morgan. Both musicians c ...

'', released in June 2017, and ''

Across the Field "(Fight The Team) Across the Field" is the older of two fight songs of Ohio State University, with the newer one being "Buckeye Battle Cry". Although the lyrics reference football heroics and was composed by the football team's varsity manager, Wil ...

'', released in June 2019. Their first album received a very positive 83 aggregate score on

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

and was named the 25th best album of 2017 by ''Magnet'' magazine, while their second received an 84 and was named Folk Album of the Month by ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

''. The two have toured in the United States and the United Kingdom. They have also appeared at folk festivals such as the annual

Pickathon The Pickathon Music Festival (commonly called Pickathon or Pickathon Festival) is an annual three-day music festival located just outside Portland, Oregon on Pendarvis Farm. Occurring nearly every August since 1999, the festival has hosted a wide v ...

Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populous co ...

, the Festival for the Eno in

Durham, North Carolina Durham ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of North Carolina and the county seat of Durham County, North Carolina, Durham County. Small portions of the city limits extend into Orange County, North Carolina, Orange County and Wake County, North Carol ...

, and the Fanø Free Folk Fest in Denmark, playing with artists such as

Carole Pegg Carole Pegg, sometimes Carolanne Pegg, is a British folksinger and violinist, and ethnomusicologist. In 1970 Pegg and her husband Bob formed British folk rock band Mr. Fox, which dissolved in 1972 when their marriage ended. In 1973 she released ...

and

Emmanuelle Parrenin Emmanuelle Parrenin is a French folk singer, harpist and hurdy-gurdy player who was first active in the late 1960s and 1970s as part of "''le mouvement folk''". Early life and education Parrenin was born into a family steeped in classical mu ...

History

The band members met when Sarah Louise opened as a solo act at the Mothlight in Asheville for another band, the

Black Twig Pickers The Black Twig Pickers is an Appalachian old-time band consisting of Mike Gangloff on fiddle/ banjo/ jawharp/vocals; Nathan Bowles on banjo/percussion/vocals; Isak Howell on guitar/ mouthharp/vocals; and Sally Anne Morgan on fiddle, flat-fo ...

, in which Sally Anne is a vocalist and fiddle player, and after appearing separately at the

Big Ears Festival The Big Ears Festival is an annual music festival in Knoxville, Tennessee, created and produced by AC Entertainment. History The festival was founded in 2009 by Ashley Capps, founder of AC Entertainment. The festival was originally organized b ...

Knoxville, Tennessee Knoxville is a city in and the county seat of Knox County, Tennessee, Knox County in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2020 United States census, Knoxville's population was 190,740, making it the largest city in the East Tennessee Grand Di ...

. Outside of their music careers, Morgan is a

letterpress Letterpress printing is a technique of relief printing. Using a printing press, the process allows many copies to be produced by repeated direct impression of an inked, raised surface against sheets or a continuous roll of paper. A worker comp ...

artist with a degree in

geology Geology () is a branch of natural science concerned with Earth and other astronomical objects, the features or rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Ear ...

while Henson is also an herbalist.

Musical style

The duo are known for giving a modern, feminist spin to historic and sometimes patriarchal or misogynistic ballads from Great Britain, Appalachia, and the Ozarks region by giving greater voice to the songs' female protagonists. They have also chosen to record other songs with problematic lyrics as instrumentals only. Examples of this include the traditional murder ballad " Two Sisters", as a harmony for guitar and banjo in 2019, and songs "The Cursed Soldier" and "Rainbow 'Mid Life's Willows." Artists whose songs they have reinterpreted include

Robert Burns Robert Burns (25 January 175921 July 1796), also known familiarly as Rabbie Burns, was a Scottish poet and lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland and is celebrated worldwide. He is the best known of the poets who hav ...

Dillard Chandler Dillard Chandler (April 16, 1907 – January 24, 1992) was an American Appalachian Folk singer from Madison County, North Carolina. His a cappella performances on compilation albums were recorded by folklorist and musicologist John Cohen. ...

, and

Shirley Collins Shirley Elizabeth Collins MBE (born 5 July 1935) is an English folk singer who was a significant contributor to the English Folk Revival of the 1960s and 1970s. She often performed and recorded with her sister Dolly, whose accompaniment on ...

. Shirley and

Dolly Collins Dorothy Ann Collins (6 March 1933 – 22 September 1995), was an English folk musician, arranger and composer. She was the older sister of Shirley Collins. Born in Hastings, Sussex (now East Sussex), she grew up in an artistic, socialist ...

' 1978 album ''For as Many as Will'' is specifically credited as an inspiration for their second album, as was Swedish psychedelic group Pärson Sound.

Discography

* ''

'' (2017) * ''

'' (2019)

References

External links

Official site

Bandcamp site
{{Authority control American folk musical groups Musical groups from Asheville, North Carolina