Flop Eared Mule A Country Music Death Beast and Worker in the Dylan Industrial Complex | Sydney, Australia | Est. 2004

Well now, this is interesting. I get a lot of music PR blather, and mostly I have no idea how I got on their lists or why, and mostly I delete without even opening. But occasionally you gets a heads up on something that could turn out to be gold.

And thus this showed up today, news of a collection "unifying American folk ballads and traditional Uzbek instrumentation" involving amongst others John Carter Cash, Marty Stuart and Dr Ralph Stanley called Pale Imperfect Diamond. Colelctively known as the Cedar Hill Refugees. Recorded in part at the Carter Family homestead.Some sample tracks are on MySpace, "Bury Me Not", "Keys to the Kingdom", "The Wife of Usher's Well" and "Wildwood Flower." WOW! It works, friends. They are on Twitter.

Intrigued by the music of Uzbekistan, composer and producer Jack Clift began visiting the Central Asian country to learn more about the music though studio work with Jadoo, a group of musicians who improvise using traditional Uzbek music. Clift's first trip took place in 2004 and, almost immediately, he began to identify the similarities between Uzbek music and the music of his youth; he likened it specifically to Appalachian mountain music that stirred his imagination. Rather than think the rhythms and tones a world away from one another, Clift noticed the parallel construction.