The central conceit here is that the CD looks and sounds as if it were some Harry Smith discovery of a nameless Appalachian genius of the fiddle sawing away at his/her instrument as if life itself were hanging in the balance. Yet, the artist is an enigmatic author, visual artist, minimalist composer and performer (see www.henryflynt.org). What you hear here is a reproduction or adaptation of apparently country-born themes in the context of downtown NYC art, sort of a Bartok or Stravinsky approach melded with Tony Conrad. The production is rather raw, of course, to increase the illusion of authenticity. All of this is fascinating and thoroughly enjoyable.

1. Tightly coiled solo fiddle line punctuated by foot-tapping noise; Hoedown, indeed
2. Johnny B Goode on fiddle
3. Reverby and overdubbed banjo; the melody is reminiscent however of the Doobie Brothers' "Black Water"
4. Way backwoods melody though the production is pretty clean
5. A pretty guitar workout, effective use of muting effect to lend a warm, quasi-jazz feel to the song (as opposed to the raw sounds of the fiddle elsewhere)
6. More fleshed out, with bass and muted guitar alongside circling fiddle
7. Beautiful, archetypal, solo guitar rockabilly tune; swinging rhythm and cool melodic runs
8. Hurried guitar rhythm seems to overlap with but not agree with violin part; disorienting
9. Is this more hillbilly than the rest, to deserve "hillbilly" in the title? Arguably, yes, but there are also moments where a hint of formality makes you stop and take notice of what lies beneath
10. Starts out super-fast and decelerates over its 19 minute run, as the title implies, until you sit and wait with bated breath for the next bar to drop