Broke Royals – Strung Up In Lights
Vestiges – I
Daniel Bachman – Song For The Setting Sun II
The El Mansouris – Walden
KTW – Downeast
The Red Lines – How Can I Stay?
Max D – Bubblegum
Lauren Calve – Hard
Once Okay Twice – I Have An Illness
Mooks – Song For Bella
The Harry Bells – Jump In the Line
Rush Plus – Low For Me
The Northern Divide – Severance
Strange Times People Band – Andion
Bossalingo – Django
00Genesis – In the Ruff
Timmy Sells His Soul – Memory Foam
Cullen Ruff – Longing
Nitemoves – Harbinger Group
Crooks and Crows – The Underwood No. 5

JLaine, TFOX, & W. Ellington Felton – Me and You and Everyone we know
Projekt Eins – Vacillate-Venerate
Daniel Barbiero & Massimo Discepoli – Autopoiesis
Charles Road – Good Fight (instrumental)
Hurlebaus – Joplin
Gideon Grove – Cherokee Stars
The Northern Divide – A Niche For Plagues
Low End String Quartet – Grinder
Joey and the Waitress – Random Song
Yoko K. – pho
Jordan Clawson – Camera Man
Calm The Waters – Splinter
#KNO-1 – You’re The Sweetest 1
Old Software – Medieval Techno Dance-Off
SIR E.U – WMATA (t3nnisball)
Rod Hamilton – Aqua 1
Star FK Radium – Daisypop
Big Easy E – Don’t Cry For Me
Daniel Bachman – Levee
Tereu Tereu – The Body Unmade

Hurlebaus – Capital Crescent Town
Lilac Daze – Frederick Rock City
Aaron Leitko – Downtown Protoculture / Extended Family (Edit)
Ronny Smith – Lift Off
The Rail Runners – One Note Brown
#KNO-1 – If Only 4 1 Night
Bliss – Still
Scenic Mental Detours – Dots on the Ocean
Soleaux – Cyanide
The Red Lines – There There
PHZ-Sicks – Black Women
Nitemoves – Rosencroix
Yoko K. – huggy robot
Luke Brindley – Threshold
Kindlewood – Desiderium
DJ Winterman – Di Gully
Jordan Clawson – The Play
Once Okay Twice – The Lonely
Daniel Bachman – Song For The Setting Sun I
Brian Forehand – Moonroof

Kindlewood – An Interlude
Cullen Ruff – Longing
#KNO-1 – Love Won’t Let Me Wait
Dirdy Redzz – Drinks at Adams Morgan
Hurlebaus – 1998
The Rail Runners – The Word
Furniteur – Redundant Buzz
Daniel Bachman – Farnham
Peals – Become Younger
PHZ-Sicks – Stream of Consciousness
Yoko K. – attic
Ras Nebyu – Slizzed Up ft. The Arckitech
Elijah Jamal Balbed – What Matters Most – In Life
nick tha 1da – bluburies
Wye Oak – Archaic Smile
Empresarios – Rootsy Jam
Aaron Leitko – 0505#4
Griefloss – Void
Judah – Liv’s Theme Music
Gordon Withers – Revolving Doors

The Red Lines – Foggy
Luke Brindley – The Journey
Rush Plus – Low For Me
Troy and Paula Haag – 27
Hurlebaus – Joplin
Big Sky Conspiracy – The Rise and Fall of Damascus
Wye Oak – Two Small Deaths
The Grit Pushers – Two Snakes
Kindlewood – In the Clearing
The Greatest Hoax – Pyrogens
Anthony Pirog – Summer Fog
Beauty Pill – The Western Prayer
Constant Alarm – Breathe You
Motion Lines – Bliss
Foozle – Sofa Couch
Daniel Bachman – Song For The Setting Sun II
Roger Aldridge – Connecticut Avenue SUVs
Language of Sleep – Act I
Dupont Brass – Killin’ Me Softly
Screen Vinyl Image – Edge of Forever

Kino Musica – Yèkèrmo Sèw
David King – Exmemory
Ace Cosgrove – Reality (Prod. by Dirty Chocolate)
Daniel Bachman – Levee
Jacob Gemmell – The Battle
Higher Hands – U-Turn
The Soul Searchers – If It Ain’t Funky
Projekt Eins – Sentient Sedition
Rumpole – Cool Day
Demetrius Zozul – Island
Jason Ward – sorry i cant come home
John W. Warren – Nana da Lua
Abu Jibran – My Triangle
Stephen Robey – Charlotte’s Song
Hailu Mergia – Shilela
Joey and the Waitress – Mother May I
Seth Kibel – Your Mileage May Vary
Aquarium – Credits
Martyn – Fashion Skater
The Torches – Wish You Well

Culling from Virginia Traditions — a collection of recordings released by the Blue Ridge Institute at Ferrum College and acquired by the Smithsonian — Bachman assembled an 18-track compilation of traditional Virginia music for Folkways’ new monthly series, “People’s Picks.”

Bachman’s playlist spans British-rooted ballads, prison work songs, piano tunes and shades of the blues, performed by white and African-American Virginia musicians between the 1920s and 1980s. Many of the tunes are steeped in local flavor, like “Sleep On,” performed by singers Lena Thompson, Lucy Scott and Lucy Smith to a soundtrack of crab-packing. Bachman tells its story on Folkways’ website:

This is a particularly interesting regional Virginia recording and one that I’m especially excited about, as I grew up eating a lot of crabs. The song narrative could take place in any number of Eastern Shore or coastal Virginia crab houses around that time. Behind the typical choruses heard on this tune is the sound of crab bodies and legs being cracked and packed into pint and quart containers. This particular recording was made in Northumberland County on the Northern Neck, at the Rappahannock Oyster Company.

Listen to “Sleep On” and the rest of Bachman’s playlist on Folkways’ site or via Spotify, below. (The institution says the playlist will also be available on Rdio and Rhapsody.) You can stream Bachman’s latest record, River, via NPR Music’s First Listen, too.

The 25-year-old has been at the solo-guitar game since he was a teenager, befriending folks like the since-departed Jack Rose and slowly finding his own way into the music. That’s why it felt right to bring Bachman back to the area that inspired River, a record surrounded by history, but guided by hands and a heart that know its bends and bumps.

In early March, we met Bachman in Fredericksburg to drive an hour east to Stratford Hall, home to four generations of the Lee family, which includes two signers of the Declaration of Independence; it’s also the birthplace of Robert E. Lee. Bachman knows it well, not only because his dad works there, but also because he can’t help but bury himself in history books about the region.

There’s still snow on the ground when we arrive, as we scrape chunks of mud from our boots before entering the impeccably preserved Great House. Overlooking the rolling hills of Virginia, Bachman plays a version of “Song For The Setting Sun II” in what was the performance space at Stratford Hall. The song leaps boldly around the sunlit, symmetrical room, bouncing off walls decorated with paintings of buxom women and men in powdered wigs.

Set List

• “Song For The Setting Sun II”

Credits

Producers: Lars Gotrich, Mito Habe-Evans; Audio Engineer: Kevin Wait; Videographers: Mito Habe-Evans, Maggie Starbard, Carlos Waters, Lars Gotrich; Special Thanks: Stratford Hall, Mark and Rachel Dibner of the Argus Fund; Executive Producer: Anya Grundmann

Copyright 2015 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

Bachman showed steady improvement through his six previous albums, but he’s found new levels of sharpness and confidence in River‘s seven masterful songs. Each chord is struck with distinct purpose, and each tune progresses firmly with clear goals ahead. There’s still openness to Bachman’s naturalistic playing, which sounds freed by tradition rather than bound by it. But what impresses most is the bold, precise tone he weaves into River.

That precision lets Bachman convey emotion without getting lost in sentiment, and lets him wax poetic without forcing ideas together. In the past, he’s sometimes barreled his way through songs in furious flurries. But here he builds momentum in patient stretches rather than hectic clusters. This helps him sustain tension across the 14-minute opener “Won’t You Cross Over To That Other Shore,” which should sound like three or four songs pasted together, yet unfolds organically in ways that make it feel shorter than it is.

The guiding metaphor behind River is the Rappahanock, a Virginia waterway which, as Bachman explains in his liner notes, “divides north and south, mountain and bay and, at one point in time, it even separated two great armies.” Keeping the river on his mind focuses and diversifies his music, which constantly pushes forward and changes scenery. Of course, using water symbolically in art is nothing new, and nearly a cliché in music with this much rural tradition behind it. But the simple way Bachman employs the theme gives River universal power. It’s about motion, direction and the passage of time, and it sounds like it could keep flowing forever.

Copyright 2015 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.