Tin Hat Trio
Encyclopedia
Tin Hat is an acoustic chamber music
group currently based in San Francisco, California
. Their music combines many genres of music, including southern blues
, bluegrass
, neoclassical
, eastern European folk music
, and avant-garde
.
Since its formation in 1997, the original Tin Hat Trio has often expanded its trio format by inviting other musicians to join them. All five of their CDs feature guests, among them Mike Patton
, Tom Waits
and Willie Nelson
, as well as friends like clarinet
ist Ben Goldberg and harp
ist Zeena Parkins
. Parkins appears on 2002's The Rodeo Eroded and 2004's Book of Silk and has performed live with the trio as the resident sound effects artist in their live music/silent film projects. Goldberg has been a frequent guest of Tin Hat Trio and contributed to both Memory is an Elephant and The Rodeo Eroded.
When founding member Rob Burger (the trio's accordion
ist and pianist) left the trio in late 2004, Mark Orton and Carla Kihlstedt
replaced him with both Goldberg and Parkins, presenting a new, though closely related, ensemble—the Tin Hat Quartet—for two short concert tours in the U.S. in January and April 2005. While on tour, they invited another musician to come under their hat, San Francisco's Ara Anderson—known as one of Tom Waits' favorite sidemen in recent years. Like the departed Burger, Anderson plays myriad keyed instruments as well as trumpet
and glockenspiel
, thus adding new colors and strokes to the already large canvas of Tin Hat's sound.
In 2005 Tin Hat Trio's song "Fear of the South" was featured on the Everything Is Illuminated
soundtrack.
Chamber music
Chamber music is a form of classical music, written for a small group of instruments which traditionally could be accommodated in a palace chamber. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small number of performers with one performer to a part...
group currently based in San Francisco, California
San Francisco, California
San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...
. Their music combines many genres of music, including southern blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
, bluegrass
Bluegrass music
Bluegrass music is a form of American roots music, and a sub-genre of country music. It has mixed roots in Scottish, English, Welsh and Irish traditional music...
, neoclassical
Neoclassicism (music)
Neoclassicism in music was a twentieth-century trend, particularly current in the period between the two World Wars, in which composers sought to return to aesthetic precepts associated with the broadly defined concept of "classicism", namely order, balance, clarity, economy, and emotional restraint...
, eastern European folk music
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
, and avant-garde
Experimental music
Experimental music refers, in the English-language literature, to a compositional tradition which arose in the mid-20th century, applied particularly in North America to music composed in such a way that its outcome is unforeseeable. Its most famous and influential exponent was John Cage...
.
Since its formation in 1997, the original Tin Hat Trio has often expanded its trio format by inviting other musicians to join them. All five of their CDs feature guests, among them Mike Patton
Mike Patton
Michael Allan "Mike" Patton is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer, and actor, best known as the lead singer of the metal/experimental rock band Faith No More. He has also sung for Mr...
, Tom Waits
Tom Waits
Thomas Alan "Tom" Waits is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car."...
and Willie Nelson
Willie Nelson
Willie Hugh Nelson is an American country music singer-songwriter, as well as an author, poet, actor, and activist. The critical success of the album Shotgun Willie , combined with the critical and commercial success of Red Headed Stranger and Stardust , made Nelson one of the most recognized...
, as well as friends like clarinet
Clarinet
The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...
ist Ben Goldberg and harp
Harp
The harp is a multi-stringed instrument which has the plane of its strings positioned perpendicularly to the soundboard. Organologically, it is in the general category of chordophones and has its own sub category . All harps have a neck, resonator and strings...
ist Zeena Parkins
Zeena Parkins
Zeena Parkins is a harpist active in rock music, free improvisation and jazz. Parkins plays standard harps, as well as several custom-made one-of-a kind electric harps; she also plays piano and accordion...
. Parkins appears on 2002's The Rodeo Eroded and 2004's Book of Silk and has performed live with the trio as the resident sound effects artist in their live music/silent film projects. Goldberg has been a frequent guest of Tin Hat Trio and contributed to both Memory is an Elephant and The Rodeo Eroded.
When founding member Rob Burger (the trio's accordion
Accordion
The accordion is a box-shaped musical instrument of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone family, sometimes referred to as a squeezebox. A person who plays the accordion is called an accordionist....
ist and pianist) left the trio in late 2004, Mark Orton and Carla Kihlstedt
Carla Kihlstedt
Carla Kihlstedt is an American violinist, vocalist, and multi-instrumentalist from Lancaster, Pennsylvania currently living in Oakland, California....
replaced him with both Goldberg and Parkins, presenting a new, though closely related, ensemble—the Tin Hat Quartet—for two short concert tours in the U.S. in January and April 2005. While on tour, they invited another musician to come under their hat, San Francisco's Ara Anderson—known as one of Tom Waits' favorite sidemen in recent years. Like the departed Burger, Anderson plays myriad keyed instruments as well as trumpet
Trumpet
The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...
and glockenspiel
Glockenspiel
A glockenspiel is a percussion instrument composed of a set of tuned keys arranged in the fashion of the keyboard of a piano. In this way, it is similar to the xylophone; however, the xylophone's bars are made of wood, while the glockenspiel's are metal plates or tubes, and making it a metallophone...
, thus adding new colors and strokes to the already large canvas of Tin Hat's sound.
In 2005 Tin Hat Trio's song "Fear of the South" was featured on the Everything Is Illuminated
Everything Is Illuminated (film)
Everything Is Illuminated is a 2005 adventure/dramedy film, written and directed by Liev Schreiber and starring Elijah Wood and Eugene Hütz...
soundtrack.
Discography
- Memory Is an Elephant (1999, Angel)
- Helium (2000, Angel)
- The Rodeo Eroded (2002, RopeadopeRopeadope RecordsRopeadope Records is an American record label specializing in jazz, hip hop, electronic and downtempo music. The label was founded by Andy Hurwitz in New York City and later moved to Philadelphia, where it is now located....
) - Book of Silk (2005, Ropeadope)
- Everything Is IlluminatedEverything Is Illuminated (film)Everything Is Illuminated is a 2005 adventure/dramedy film, written and directed by Liev Schreiber and starring Elijah Wood and Eugene Hütz...
Motion Picture Soundtrack (2005) - The Sad Machinery of Spring (2007, Hannibal/RykodiscRykodiscRykodisc Records is an American record label. It is owned by Warner Music Group, operates as a unit of WMG's Independent Label Group and is distributed through Alternative Distribution Alliance.-Company history:...
) - Foreign Legion (2010, BAG Productions)