David Tiller

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David Tiller

THE CHANGING SEASONS OF SONG

A life in music has its seasons and for David Tiller, this is the season of songs. Best known for his virtuosic mandolin and guitar playing in the bluegrass and newgrass community, Tiller is down from the mountain with Under the Influence, an album of intimate songs that center his river-clear voice and songwriting. With special guests including Bonnie Paine, Megan Burtt, Jefferson Hamer and Sally Van Meter, the record maps the understory of relationships where we reach for light and bloom in the shadows. The arrangements are full of precision and purpose — each track with its intricate hooks, turns and architecture, like a honeycomb or nautilus shell. It’s music that asks you to lean in close and listen.

Tiller grew up in the Blue Ridge Mountain town of Waterford, VA in a neighborhood where everyone left their doors unlocked and kids would run through each other’s backyards and living rooms. His mother was a flamboyant painter and author, while his father a violinist-turned-drummer who moonlit as a radio DJ spinning LPs by everyone from Miles and Mingus to Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan. Old-time and bluegrass music were woven into the town’s social fabric — guitars, fiddles and banjos were as ever-present as mountain laurels along the Appalachian Trail. Tiller was a founding member of ThaMuseMeant, a folk-rock outfit who toured extensively in the late 90s and early 2000s. He and his wife, Enion Pelta-Tiller, left to co-found Taarka, an alt-folk and world-wise jazz band who have made seven albums. No Depression raves that their music is like a feast that has “sustenance that stays with you long after you’ve pushed away from the table.”