Silkroad Ensemble's New Album "American Railroad"

The disc explores the musical heritage of the laborers who built the American railroads

Silkroad Ensemble's newest album, American Railroad, was released today on Nonesuch Records. The album explores the various cultural groups and micro-histories associated with the building of the railroads, including Indigenous and African Americans, as well as Irish, Chinese, Japanese, and other immigrant laborers

One track on the album, "Far Down Far," was composed by Silkroad artist and Celtic harper Maeve Gilchrist. It is a re-working of the Irish jig "The Far Down Farmer," with motivic material being pulled apart and re-purposed in a rhythmic manner that imitates the momentum of a train.

"I was drawn towards a jig called ‘The Far Down Farmer,’ pulled from Francis O'Neill's Music of Ireland, a collection of over 1,850 pieces of Irish folk tunes and songs," said Maeve Gilchrist of her work. "During my research into the Irish involvement in the building of the American Transcontinental Railroad, I read about the tension that existed on occasion between Catholic and Protestant workers. The Catholic workers — often from a more economically depressed background — were sometimes referred to as ‘Far Downers.’"

"I took this simple, two-part jig, and deconstructed the vocabulary, using the motifs and intervals as if I were building a train, laying the tracks and allowing the melody to build up momentum and speed as it gets slung between our respective instruments."

"I hope that this composition pays tribute to the roots of the tune and the back-breaking work of the workers on both sides of the religious and cultural divide while allowing the melody to fly in the hands of women who would likely never have been given a fiddle or a flute — let alone a hammer to build with!"

You can listen to "Far Down Far" below: