Frank Fairfield sounds like an Alan Lomax field recording, and he's barely thirty years old. How this guy manages to sound this raw and, err, "authentic" is a question worth pondering, and it's something you should probably do with "I've Always Been A Rambler" on repeat. His Appalachian fiddle has the rough, scratchy quality that keeps things immediate, and his voice trembles with barely contained emotion on low notes and pierces on the keening high ones. Music critics have a tendency to clown on overly reverent white boys playing old-timey music (Jack White comes to mind), but Frank Fairfield stops this impulse dead in its tracks. He is, and forgive the inexcusable cliché, "the real thing," in every way. A stunning, bare-bones howl, like a visit from a ghost you don't want but probably need.