Song List: Alien Song, Fairies & Lightning, Set in Stone, Steel & Rust, Discovering Me, Try, Trails of Home, Circustown, Long Time.
Broken Compass Bluegrass is the latest in a long line of young California bands to take the stage and be noticed by the bluegrass and Americana community across the country. Still in their teens, their music reflects years of growing up surrounded by music with their families and involvement with the CBA Kids on Bluegrass and other Northern California musicians. Band members are Sam Jacobs on bass, Kyle Ledson on mandolin, guitar, banjo and vocals, Django Ruckrich on guitar, mandolin, slide guitar and vocals, and Mei Lin Heirendt on fiddle and vocals. Four of the nine songs were written by Kyle, four by Mei Lin, and one by Django.
Mei Lin’s instrumental “Circustown” showcases the band’s strong instrumental skills. Mandolin and fiddle trade leads with a delightful bounce that could easily be a circus parade with colorful wagons, clowns, and horses. Broken Compass seems a strong metaphor for the band’s style: compasses guide a linear pathway from point to point, a broken one would lead to meandering and constant checking of position. The songs aren’t linear beginning, middle, and end but rather stopping points of observation filled with contrasts and ponderings. “Fairies & Lightning” is Mei Lin’s search in the woods with “everything is watching, judging leaving me to break this spell alone.” Her “Trails of Home” has a wistful backward look at home as the singer sets out on a journey. Kyle’s “Alien Song” has wisps of childhood fears of “something lurking in the backyard” and his lyrics to the listener invite deeper contemplation: “where my light is your sun down” and “to see my friends come and go like falling flakes of frozen snow.” Fascinating imagery, jamgrass melodic variations, and an evergrowing outreach for distinctive audio effect make this a fascinating band to discover.