Kristen Grainger & Dan Wetzel / True North Duo Time and Materials Self Release

This twelve-track album was written and recorded by the Oregon-based couple, Kristen Grainger and Dan Wetzel. Members of West Coast string band Kristen Grainger & True North, the project is very much a team effort by the duo. They share vocals and harmonies and play five instruments: two guitars, a banjo, a baritone ukulele, and a tenor ukulele, all of which were hand-built by Wetzel. The cottage industry project also included input from their daughter, who designed the artwork on the record.

Taking a leaf out of the Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings template, the material is laid-back and ‘front porch’ in approach. Grainger’s unrushed vocal deliveries take the lead on ten of the twelve songs, and the harmonious vocals and supporting instrumentation emphasise the relaxed chemistry between them.

Lost love and regret raise their heads in Sound Of Losing You (‘It’s the clock in the kitchen tick-tocking my life away too, It’s the sound of losing you’). Lonesome For You treads a similar path of aloneness and wanting, but the sweeter-themed ‘Til I Have You paints a brighter picture of appreciation of stability and companionship. For me, the standout tracks are Doris Dean and Still Life Café. The former tells the tale of a ninety-year-old woman named by her mother after a Wild West trick rider . The latter is very much in the present day, reflecting the plight of immigrants barely surviving against an increasingly volatile background (‘Most of us here at the Still Life café learned to smile to cover the pain. The hostess escaped from the Taliban, the cook is from Senegal me from Ukraine, the busboys are brothers from Guadalajara’). The prayer-like Richard Shindell cover, Next Best Western, pleads for safe passage for those whose livelihoods are dependent on pumping gas and spending hours on the highways.

TIME and MATERIALS was self-produced by Grainger and Wetzel and recorded by Dale Adkins at his Big Owl Studios in Oregon. The songs, often stripped to the bare bones, showcase the couple’s flair for easy-to-access melody in a highly listenable collection of songs that acknowledge both the past and the present.

Declan Culliton
https://www.lonesomehighway.com/music-reviews/2025/7/7/new-album-reviews