[Cover photo credit to Emily Klarer]

Boston-based acoustic quartet Twisted Pine have released new single “Lonestar,” out now via Signature Sounds Records. The fiddle tune is a “traveling song” written by fiddler/lead singer Kathleen Parks, and carries plenty of Bluegrass tradition.

It’s one of three songs the band recorded for their recent PASTE Magazine session at Merlefest in North Carolina. Dobro champion Jerry Douglas joins the band for two of the songs, including their mashup of “The One I Love is Gone” (Bill Monroe) and “El Chepe” (Vulfpeck).

Parks shares the inspiration behind the song “Lonestar”:

‘Lonestar’ is one of our most explicitly bluegrass-influenced songs, drawing especially upon the more spiritual and mystical end of the bluegrass spectrum. Bill Monroe used to talk about the influence of the ‘Ancient Tones’ on his music, which we understood to be a certain mysterious quality or sound or vibe that is as old as the mountains, timeless and universal across humanity. And he would write songs around really heavy themes, like mortality and the afterlife. Sonically and lyrically, we were going for our own modern take on that expansive, cosmic quality he was able to evoke on songs like ‘My Last Days on Earth’ or ‘Walls of Time’ which he wrote with Peter Rowan.

Twisted Pine will be back on the road hitting festivals and U.S. towns this summer and Fall.