Album Review: Sweet Cacophony – Wind, Sand & Stars

The members of Iowa City-based folk quartet Sweet Cacophony have been playing music collectively for many decades. However, these lifelong musicians didn’t meet each other until recently. Life threw them together at the Hilltop Tavern’s Friends of Old Time Music jam sessions, which harmonica/accordion player Dennis Roseman has long organized. Peter Rolnick (guitars/mandolin), Jim Delaney (guitars/percussion) and Dave Parsons (bass/whistle) were the first to come together, in 2013. Roseman joined them soon after.

The band is a mix of Iowa City natives and transplants. Their backgrounds are all over the place. Delaney was a rock ’n’ roller in high school, Parsons has a history as a brass player in big bands and Dixieland bands, Roseman has played everything from traditional Irish music to jazz and Rolnick, according to his bio, “especially resonate[s] with acoustic country blues.” This “sweet cacophony” of influences comes together in delightful ways, exploring the deceptively simple-sounding but deliciously complex world of traditional American folk music on their first recording, Wind, Sand & Stars, which came out this January.

As befits the genre they landed on for this album, Sweet Cacophony is at its best when harmonizing. A stand-out on the record is their take on the Gordon Lightfoot number “In the Early Morning Rain,” famously recorded by Peter, Paul & Mary. Parsons’ lead vocals fit the tune perfectly and Rolnick’s harmonies give it just the right lift. That song also heavily features Roseman’s outstanding harmonica work, always a joy when it surfaces (it also shines on “Mean Woman Blues” and “Mama ‘t Ain’t Long ‘fo Day”).

My favorite track by far, though, is “Home to Home,” written by Rolnick. It’s a song that seeps under your skin. Those gorgeous harmonies are out in full force, like sandpaper for your soul. It’s an anthem for anyone who has ever experienced wanderlust, and speaks powerfully to the sense of place we carry within us. On an album carefully crafted from some of the greatest traditional folk and blues songs from the last century, the original tunes (this one, “Catch a Piece of Snow” and the title track) are most notable for how seamlessly they blend into the whole. But “Home to Home” stands out, too, lyrically and musically. It has that ineffable quality of traditional folk that somehow allows you to feel joy and sadness simultaneously.

“Our stories unravel and we knit them again,” sings Rolnick on that track. Wind, Sand & Stars is a beautiful re-knitting of the folk canon, with a few new skeins added in.

This article was originally published in Little Village issue 194.