Bio

Released in the Summer of 2020, Right Now is a cosmic map of the new and glistening journeys of Twisted Pine, the Boston-based spacecraft of a band that was once bluegrass but is now “something else, a wider version of a stringband, boundary jumpers akin to outfits like Punch Brothers, Nickel Creek, and Crooked Still [The Boston Globe].” The soundscape for this full-length sophomore release has all the sass of zero-gravity pop; the grooves of 2 a.m. funk jams; the astral flute and shoobedoos of 70s radio. “Punch Brothers meets Jean-Luc Ponty and Ian Anderson [Jethro Tull],” writes Folk Alley of the instrumental track “Amadeus Party" -- and yet the lyric narratives are packed with the elements of earthling mountain music. “Right Now” aims to shut the careless mouth of an ex. “Papaya" whispers, "Don't just pass me right by."  “Dreamaway” describes a faith that comes and goes. “Don’t Come Over Tonight” demands a night off from a guy's opinions. The covers pay homage to Father John Misty and Tex Logan -- two points that intersect the plane of this exquisite world. Twisted Pine is Kathleen Parks (Newburgh, NY) on fiddle and lead vox; Dan Bui (Houston, TX) on mandolin; Chris Sartori (Concord, MA) on bass; and Twisted Pine's newest addition, Anh Phung (Chilliwack, BC) on flute. Everybody sings. Twisted Pine plays under the influence of explorers Jerry Douglas (with whom the band occasionally tours), Bela Fleck, Sierra Hull, Billy Strings, The Wood Brothers, and Lake Street Dive and Crooked Still (label mates at Signature Sounds Recordings). Right Now was produced by Twisted Pine and by Dan Cardinal at Dimension Sound in Jamaica Plain (Boston), MA. 

Notes from the playerS

Right Now: The Genre, by Chris Sartori 

People always ask us: “So... what genre are you??” It's a reasonable question and honestly there’s no short answer. You could call it, ‘neo-folk indie soul avant jazz jam grass-icana’ but that doesn’t quite roll off the tongue. We’re definitely rooted in bluegrass. We grew out of that community, and are continually inspired by its explorers like Bela Fleck, Jerry Douglas, Sierra Hull and Billy Strings to name a couple. They’ve helped grow Bluegrass into a mighty big tree, and we’ve got our little Pine branch somewhere on there. There may be no banjo and relatively few boom-chicks, but there’s an acoustic intensity and life to our grooves that I think would make the founding fathers smile. Right Now takes this heritage into a new dimension. We’re still waiting on Spotify to invent the right word to categorize us. It’s a little fruity, a little spicy, and it doesn’t take itself too seriously. Our bluegrass is jazzy, our indiefolk is poppy, our grooves are FUNKY, and Anh Phung is playing flute! We’re influenced by bands like Lake Street Dive and Crooked Still, the Flecktones and the Wood Brothers. Like them, the music is easier to feel than it is to describe. Genre is a construct anyways right? Twisted Pine is a vibe! Call it what you want. 

Right Now: The Players, by Anh Phung

Introducing Twisted Pine, a lively grab bag of star players. Laying it down with his backbone chop, nimble fingers, and jolly demeanor, Dan Bui and his mighty mandolin build a solid foundation that traditionalists crave and progressives covet. Raised in Houston, Texas on pho and funk, Bui’s U-eys keep this crew on time and on track with driving melodies and chops for days. Alongside Bui towers his trusty rhythmic comrade, Chris Sartori keeping it funky fresh and solid as a rock like a moose on a walk. This Concord, Massachusetts big boy has a big appetite for keeping that upright bass grounded and grooving (OR sizzling and saucy?), not to mention for a big ol’ burrito. Sitting atop this dynamic duo perches Kathleen Parks, ready to pounce. Newberg, New York’s own ferocious feline fiddles her way through virtuosic snaps and experimental quips as her audacious yet sultry vocals leave ears perked and tails raised. With a knack for writing booty-shaking songs and some sass to boot, Parks is a triple threat to this juncture … but that’s not all folks. In barges new kid on the block, Anh Phung, toting slick licks and stuttered flutters. Growing up in the ‘burbs of Chilliwack, BC, this little flute- wielding scamp weaves through the nooks and crannies of Twisted Pine’s musical terrain and rounds out its ever-evolving sound. 

Right Now: The Album, by Kathleen Parks 

With each and every song on this record comes a tale to be told, a memory from the road, uncontained laughter, new nicknames, a lot of good food eaten and sought after, crowded rooms and nearly empty ones, a bunch of funny dance moves and impressions, loooooong drives, venue load-ins, soundchecks, festival passes, drink tickets, percentages off food, tequila shots, great shows, weird shows, epic solos, good banter, shy banter, foot-in-mouth banter, plugged-in sets, not-planned acoustic sets, loving fans, new fans, creepy fans, fan friends from years past, cities that our friends and family live in, couch crashing, face masks (we’ve all done it at least once), accomodations, zero accommodations, homesickness, lifting each other’s spirit, looking out for each other, making the best of a weird situation, more laughter, the hunt for MORE food - and a whole lot of positive growth that has gotten us to where we are today. This record is filled with what we carry with us. It gives a nod to our roots, encompasses the different flavors of the places we’ve been to, the bands that inspire us while we route our way from venue to venue, and the people we’ve met and have interacted with countrywide. It tells the story of a growing band, the Americana music scene in which we are a part of, and how that — alongside a modern, oversharing, and ever changing culture — fits together and molds us creatively. This is what we’re bringing to you, right now.

Right Now: Track by Track, by Dan Bui

Right Now 

You know that feeling when you’re having a good time, and someone keeps trying to bring up drama from the past? This song was written about an awkward encounter with an ex. Special super tasty guest feature: the incredible Lyle Brewer on guitar.

Amadeus Party

I had this idea for a James Brown-inspired 2-part funk tune, and the band came up with the 3rd part together. One day in rehearsal Kathleen just started singing this refrain “Amadeus Party, okaaaay” — We had a concept! When it came time to make a video, we just knew we had to blow the bank on costumes.

Papaya

Everybody loves a good fruit song, right? The first of three songs that we cut live in the studio (check out the videos!)  KP says, “You know how when you’re waiting for an avocado, you just want to eat it right now, but it’s not ready? By the time it’s ripe, it’s already gone or you have to toss it out. It’s about a fruit relationship and the perfect timing for love. Don’t tell anybody, but I’ve never had a papaya. We’re putting it on the rider. I just hope I’m not allergic.

Well, You Can Do It Without Me

This Father John Misty cover is all about the groove - dig Chris on percussion and lead whistle!

Come Along Jody

We wanted to feature Anh Phung on a ripping bluegrass tune, and this is a particularly gnarly one that we’ve always loved. It comes from the amazing bluegrass fiddler Tex Logan who wrote it for his daughter Jody.

Dreamaway

Kathleen started playing this one night in the guest quarters of the Dreamaway Lodge after a long festival weekend. It was a serene, peaceful melody that was perfect for the moment. Later, she expanded it and added lyrics. I love the multi-section, suite-like feel of it.

Talkeetna

We’ve been wanting to do a total studio improvisation for awhile, something completely impromptu that captures how we interact. We fell into this groove in the studio and agreed it would be cool to make it into it’s own track, a groovy mood piece to cleanse the palette. Our producer Dan Cardinal took the groove and flipped it so that the first half is the groove played backwards, and midway through it reflects and starts playing forward.

Don’t Come Over Tonight

We’ve been playing this song live for a couple years - it’s one of the musical and emotional peaks of our sets. We’ve found that the lyrics really resonate with folks, and we always look forward to the long intense solos by Anh and Kathleen.

Fogo de Chow

This fiddle tune evolved out of pre-show green room jam. Chris usually leaves his bass onstage before a show, so when we’re warming up backstage, he’ll play a pandeiro that he carries around with him. He’s playing both bass and pandeiro on this track.

Tomorrow the Sun Will Rise

I woke up one morning and wrote this on a Wurlitzer Electric Piano that I had in my room. I sent a recording to Kathleen and we agreed we wanted to write something uplifting. The song came together at the last possible minute — we were in the studio on the last day rewriting lyrics! The guitar cadenza ending was totally improvised by Lyle Brewer. The track ended, and Lyle just kept playing. Dan Cardinal responded immediately, feeding and manipulating a tape echo in the live room. You can hear the band very faintly cheering at the end of that beautiful unplanned moment.

Right Now: The release, by Lynne Bertrand [mgmt team]

From an artist-management perspective, 2020 was slated to be a big year on the road for Twisted Pine. Our booking agents at Kurland were confirming festivals left and right: WinterWondergrass, Charm City, DelFest, Green River, RockyGrass, Tottenham, Canmore, Green Mountain, Thomas Point, Boats & Bluegrass, Moonshine … The EP the band was producing in Dan Cardinal’s Jamaica Plain (Boston) studio, Dimension, would be a fun set on the merch table and introduce the band's new player, Toronto flautist Anh Phung. The first surprise came when our label director, Jim Olsen at Signature Sounds Recordings, asked the Twists to return to the studio and bring more tracks to the table, to make the EP into the full-length musical statement he felt it was. The second — and sobering — surprise came when the band was in the studio recording those additional tracks. Anyone alive in the second half of March 2020 would know the significance of those dates: the week the U.S.  (and for us, Massachusetts in particular) moved toward lockdown. Within two weeks of shelter-in-place, people we knew were sick with Covid-19. Venues we knew were going out of business. Boston was becoming an epicenter of the pandemic. As the mgmt and label teams were listening to tracks from the album, isolated now in our homes far from each other, we heard all new things. "Dreamaway," about anxiety and faith, and "Don’t Come Over Tonight," a manifesto on demanding a night of one’s own, had heightened meaning. "Tomorrow the Sun Will Rise" was an even more urgent call to unity than it had been when we first listened. As tours like Twisted Pine’s were collapsing across the industry, we were wondering whether and how to release an album if we couldn’t even be sure whether and how we could tour it. And yet, work is life. And there was something about the music scene in the pandemic that meant a new thing to all of us. Witness Turin, with musicians playing off their apartment balconies; or Manhattan, with choruses forming in the communal space between towers. Online live-streaming sessions lent structure to endless days of lockdown, and those upbeat, honest performances reduced anxiety while they also reduced all the industry rules about booking, management, and releases to a single question of what works right now. We had to make room for Twisted Pine to be troubadours in that great tradition of necessary music, lighting bonfires all across the online world, singing truth, reminding us of love, bringing relief real people really needed. This album became a cross-section of our team’s experience of this time, a mix of boldness and anxiety, sober advice and high wit, an expression of love for the open road, for festivals, for virtuosity, for each other, for Right Now -- Lynne Bertrand, LIT33MGMT