Carter Family Values

There are countless eras in music history that might deserve to be called revolutionary: Mahler’s Symphony No.5, the hypnotic explorations of La Monte Young,  the punishing sonic intensity of the first Swans record, Nas’s “Illmatic” at the height of hip-hop’s golden age, and the emergence of Slayer and, with it, the birth of thrash metal. As a lifelong music nerd, I’ve spent years chasing those moments when music changes everything. For me, one such moment came unexpectedly when I first heard the Carter Family on an old radio aboard a fishing boat in the Atlantic, a few miles off the coast of Nova Scotia. Years later, sifting through dusty records in my cramped apartment, I realized that revolution had taken place in 1927.