This Side

Performer: Nickel Creek
Artist: Edgar Meyer
Engineer: Gary Paczosa; Tracy Martinson; Jason Lehning; Neal Cappellino
Producer: Alison Krauss
Distributor: Welk

Notes: This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players. Nickel Creek: Chris Thile (vocals, guitar, bouzouki, mandolin); Sean Watkins (vocals, guitar); Sara Watkins (vocals, fiddle, strings). Additional personnel: Byron House (acoustic bass); Edgar Meyer (arco bass). Recorded at Emerald Sound, Seventeen Grand, The Brown Cloud Studios, Nashville, Tennessee. THIS SIDE won the 2003 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album. "Smoothie Song" was nominated for the 2003 Grammy Award for Best Country Instrumental Performance. Personnel: Chris Thile (vocals, guitar, bouzouki, mandolin, strings); Sean Watkins (vocals, guitar); Sara Watkins (vocals, fiddle, strings); Byron House (acoustic bass); Edgar Meyer (upright bass). Audio Mixer: Gary Paczosa. Recording information: Seventeen Grand, Emerald Sound Studio, The Brown Cloud,. Editor: Tracy Martinson. Illustrator: Terry Hoff. Photographer: John Chiasson. Arrangers: Chris Thile; Sean Watkins; Sara Watkins . When they first made their nationwide splash with their 2000 debut album, teen bluegrass group Nickel Creek were one of the biggest mainstream crossovers since their producer/mentor Alison Krauss, successfully modernizing their tradition-conscious genre. The follow-up THIS SIDE finds the trio largely moving away from bluegrass altogether, though retaining the same spare acoustic instrumentation. A straight-ahead cover of alt-rock legends Pavement's "Spit on a Stranger" offers the first clue that this isn't exactly Bill Monroe & the Bluegrass Boys. Nickel Creek doesn't need to look to outside material for genre exploration, though. "Green and Gray" seems to bear a debt to the Dave Matthews Band (or at least John Mayer), while "Should've Known Better" is in a hip-hop-inflected R&B mode, and the title track could be a gentler moment from the archives of Tonic or Third Eye Blind. There are a few tracks sprinkled throughout the album that nod to the band's beginnings, and in these (particularly the evocative version of the traditional "House Carpenter" and the sprightly instrumental opener "Smoothie Song") a possible future for bluegrass may be glimpsed.

Entertainment Weekly (8/23/02, pp.140-1) - "...A thoughtful attempt to turn away from tradition - to make nothing less than a bluegrass art record..." - Rating: B Q (12/02, p.110) - 3 stars out of 5 - "...The playing here is spot on, the arrangements and harmonies inventive..." Uncut (1/03, p.116) - 3 stars out of 5 - "...Gloriously unaffected....THIS SIDE expands on their intricate acoustic shanties by occasionally plugging in the amps and stretching bluegrass, indie and folk over a thrillingly realized canvas..." Mojo (Publisher) (12/02, p.115) - "...Thirteen tracks, lucky for all who get to listen..."

Bluegrass crossover phenomenon Nickel Creek had a considerable head start on its competition; its members started performing together in the late 1980s when they were still children. By the time they were teenagers, the young virtuosi (mentored by the esteemed bluegrass artist Alison Krauss) had broken through to the mainstream in a big way. Their mix of bluegrass tradition and contemporary pop sensibility earned them a huge audience via their self-titled 2000 debut album, nicely dovetailing with the O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU-inspired revival of interest in bluegrass.

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