We don’t have time machines (yet) — but we do have Anna & Elizabeth. On their second album, the duet offer us 16 traditional Appalachian songs that range from hymns to dance songs. Whatever recording magic happened, these songs sound like they’re coming to us from a long way off — and I don’t mean that they were standing too far from the mic. Anna and Elizabeth’s bewitching harmonies are intimate but seem to fill the cavernous space that is, in reality, the space between our eardrums and cochlea, but since I’m feeling poetic I’d like to think they’re coming to us from another time.
Listening to these songs, I can imagine them sung in a lonely clapboard church, with rain whispering on the eaves, as the all-to-near shadow of death hovers over the congregation. But Anna and Elizabeth seem like they could be equally at home on the porch, calling out reels. All of this is to say that this album is not just about the music — some of these songs have been recorded many times by many people. Anna and Elizabeth lend a gravity to the songs that force you to think about the place they held in people’s lives once upon a time.
Anna & Elizabeth — Official, Facebook, Purchase from Free Dirt Records