Jake Blount’s new album for Smithsonian Folkways: THE NEW FAITH enacts an imagined religious ceremony performed by Black refugees after the collapse of global civilization due to catastrophic climate change. An offering of spiritual music, filled with hope for salvation and righteous anger in equal measure.

A powerfully gifted musician and a scholar of Black American music, Jake Blount speaks ardently about the African roots of the banjo and the subtle, yet profound ways African Americans have shaped and defined the amorphous categories of roots music and Americana. His 2020 album Spider Tales (named one of the year’s best albums by NPR and The New Yorker, earned a perfect 5-star review from The Guardian) highlighted the Black and Indigenous histories of popular American folk tunes, as well as revived songs unjustly forgotten in the whitewashing of the canon. Jake Blount’s new album, The New Faith, is a towering achievement of dystopian Afrofuturism and his first album for Smithsonian Folkways (released September 23, 2022). The New Faith is spiritual music, filled with hope for salvation and righteous anger in equal measure. The album manifests our worst fears on the shores of an island in Maine, where Blount enacts an imagined religious ceremony performed by Black refugees after the collapse of global civilization due to catastrophic climate change. Jake Blount’s music is rooted in care and confrontation. On stage, each song he and his band play is chosen for a reason – because it highlights important elements about the stories we tell ourselves of our shared history and our endlessly complicated present moment. The more we learn about where we’ve been, the better equipped we are to face the future.

CRITICAL ACCLAIM:

The album received widespread critical acclaim, garnering five-star reviews from The Telegraph, Songlines and Financial Times and receiving positive coverage from outlets including NPR, Bandcamp, The Guardian, The Los Angeles Times and more. It appeared on “Best of 2022” lists from Rolling Stone, NPR, PopMatters, Songlines, Folk Alley, The Guardian and more. He also released an NPR Tiny Desk Concert in January of 2023.

Most recently, Blount has been nominated for Artist of the Year at the 2023 International Folk Music Awards.

Blount has appeared on podcasts including Radiolab and Soundcheck. He regularly teaches fiddle and banjo at camps like the Augusta Heritage Center’s Old-Time Week, the Ashokan Center’s Old-Time Rollick, and Earful of Fiddle Music and Dance Camp.

“Blount is a virtuosic multi-instrumentalist… with a hauntingly gorgeous voice and a bottomless, scholarly knowledge of American musical history.” – Katherine Proctor- The Los Angeles Times

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