Skipping Rocks

Skipping Rocks is the second album by the father-and-son duo of Ken and Brad Kolodner, featuring the senior party on hammered dulcimer and the younger on banjo, fiddle and vocals. Recorded in the family's living room in Baltimore, Maryland, these original compositions and traditional songs offer an engaging respite from the more rambunctious, harder-edged strains of bluegrass and Americana that seem so prevalent these days. Eschewing pyrotechnical wizardry, accompanists Robin Bullock (guitar and mandolin), Alex Lacquement (double bass), Elke Baker (fiddle and viola) and Kagey Parrish (vocal harmonies), expertly support the material with verve and flair. There is an immediately welcoming, easy charm to the cascading cadences and shimmering melodic lines that only a dulcimer can produce, which empathetic ears will enjoy in abundance on this album.