I mentioned some months ago that I’d be writing for Deep Roots Magazine, and so I have been. Particularly, as I also mentioned a little while later, I’d been focusing on something called “international Americana” — that is to say:

…music performed generally using acoustic instruments, something like country, something like folk, sometimes incorporating elements of blues and/or bluegrass, often for small, intimate audiences rather than large-scale ones… modest music, and it’s music which springs not from glitzy high-flown impulses, but from simple ones. But — maybe surprisingly — it’s not always in English.

The article in question went up at the Deep Roots site a few days ago. Below, a brief summary:

• A discussion about what the term “Americana” in means, as a musical genre. (Maybe predictably, I sort of back into that discussion: I begin by considering a band called “Leningrad Cowboys,” an example not of musicians overseas employing Americana-musical tropes, but of importing musicians from overseas into American culture… in America.)
• Asking — and perhaps answering — some questions about why musicians overseas might even be interested in a native version of Americana music in the first place. The approach here is to consider recording-industry statistics for Australasia as of a few years ago — just before the establishment of the Americana Music Association-Australia.
• A look at a wonderful resource for anyone thinking of investigating this music themselves: The International Americana Music Show (TIAMS), a podcast/public-radio show produced by a native Scot now living in the US.
• …and finally, a survey of opinions from international artists who’ve been dubbed (at one time or another, rightly or wrongly, by choice or otherwise) as “Americana” in style. These were the artists I “spoke” with, via email, and feature in the article (in the no-particular-order in which they’re first mentioned in the article):
  • Lilly Drumeva (Bulgaria), of the band called Lilly of the West
  • Eric John Kaiser (France, now in the US)
  • Bregje Sanne Lacourt (Netherlands)
  • Mari Sandvær Kreken (Norway), of Darling West
  • Joe Troop (American, now in Venezuela via Spain, the Middle East, Japan…)
  • Elizabeth Etta (Japan), of Pirates Canoe
  • Emily Barker (Australia)
  • Scott Cook (Canada)

You can find that article here, at the Deep Roots site. Lots of music over there!

In addition to what’s in the Deep Roots piece, I’ll also be posting here, from time to time, even more information about these talented performers. They were so generous with their time in answering my questions, and yet there were so many of them that I couldn’t give each the attention they deserved!