The Peel is an instrumental trio featuring Lucy Schwallie (fiddle), Adam Fuller (banjo), and David Colagiovanni (guitar). Formed in Athens, Ohio, in 2021, The Peel explores elements of folk, chamber, drone, avant-garde, and old-time music.
Warm, gracious, historical, and avant-garde, The Peel are a beacon of art and joy, a trio in concert as much with each other as with their devoted listeners. You’ve got Lucy Schwallie on fiddle, Adam Fuller on banjo, and David Colagiovanni on guitar. There’s also Brian Koscho recording and producing. These are attentive practitioners working in a cross-genre space of old-time, classical, drone, and American primitive, among others. Unfurling like a timeless frond in the sparkling night of this musical cosmos is The Peel’s extraordinary new album, In the Ferns.
Since 2021, when the band was formed, The Peel has been a bona fide audience favorite, performing in a wide range of settings, including Nelsonville Music Festival, Stuart’s Opera House, and Porchfest in Athens, Ohio. House concerts, often hosted by The Peel, are a big part of the band’s aesthetic. These are intimate, family-friendly house shows, in the style of chamber music performances, that transcend expectations. Wherever you find The Peel, there’s a scene, a musical center, a ritual, a community.
In the Ferns, the group’s third release, is a phenomenal work of art that embodies a potent blend of trad folk textures, avant-garde experimentation, and classical techniques. It’s a music that springs from a deep well of inner life, reaching up to unveil hidden shades of the world around us, stirring fresh feelings of water, woods, community, and home. Like a creekside quilt or a festival blanket, In the Ferns is a shifting surface dappled with shadow and sunlight, a place where you can rest your mind awhile, maybe dance a few steps, and enjoy life with those you love.
There are many points of entry to this record. Whether you’re into classical minimalism, film music, traditional music, or even choreography, In the Ferns is a rich and rewarding album filled with surprise elegance and earthy invocations.
— Sun Cru
"Banjo, fiddle, and guitar blend in cadenced, euphonic layers that occasionally dip into moments of arrhythmia — never aimless, just attuned to whatever the song asks for next. The album’s strength lies in this kind of dynamic restraint: its ability to move seamlessly from soft sighs to spirited murmurs, from rhythmic play to melodic aches, always in tune with something larger than itself."
— Emily Votaw