With Mountain States, New Mexico-based banjoist and composer Johnny Bell makes a decisive, long-considered turn inward, toward the instrument that has shaped more than two decades of his musical life, and toward a vision of what the banjo can become when freed from its most rigid expectations. Released as a collaboration between Centripetal Force (USA) and Ramble Records (Australia), Mountain States is Bell’s first fully composed solo banjo record, and it lands less like a genre exercise than a quiet manifesto. The album is being issued in a 200 copy vinyl pressing, as well as digitally. Preorders will go live March 6, with the album releasing on May 8. 

Bell has long worked in multi-instrumental contexts, where the banjo functioned as one voice among many. Here, it is the central force; it's heavy, resonant, and often ominous. Mountain States consciously resists the dogma that surrounds traditional banjo culture, where mastery is often measured by fidelity to inherited tunes. “I realized I needed to make a conscious decision to begin making modern solo banjo albums,” Bell says. “This record is part of that decision.” 

The album’s conceptual core emerged early, even before its final tracklist. The title Mountain States expands the idea of “mountain music” beyond Appalachia to include the Rocky...  more