Bluegrass Briefs: Four recent releases show range from Scotgrass to intimate all-women sessions

# What this roundup covers

# Sociograss: Glee and Glutton Sociograss describe themselves as a "rough and rowdy Americana collective based in Edinburgh." Glee and Glutton is their second album and integrates bluegrass energy with Scottish folk touches and close harmony singing. Notable points:

• "Wake Up" is a voice-and-harmonium track, showing a stripped-back approach to harmony.
• Instrumental numbers like their version of "Little Maggie" lean into frenetic bluegrass soloing.

The collection leans into a Scotgrass aesthetic: familiar bluegrass forms refracted through regional vocal styles and instrumentation.

# Triple Fiddle: self-titled EP

• The record keeps technique lively and fun rather than showy.
• Vocal layering appears on tracks like "Cold, Cold Heart."
• The EP includes a playful ode to a local sandwich, "A Very Good Sandwich," tying small, everyday details to instrumental variety.

This release emphasizes instrumental craft and ensemble interplay, with short pieces that reward close listening.

# Strings: Blackwood Australian trio The Runaway Strings released Blackwood, an album with a consistent human focus on work, touring, and audience engagement. Two closing tracks address the musician's modern reality:

• "Come On Feel The Algorithm" frames the online side of contemporary music, with a narrator who complains most of his followers are bots.
• "Give Up Don't Try" depicts the strain of playing to indifferent crowds.

Other songs such as "Living The Dream" examine jobs people would rather leave, giving the album a practical, everyperson storytelling bent. The combination of traditional string-band textures and lyric themes about contemporary economic and digital life makes Blackwood relevant to both roots audiences and listeners curious about musicians' lives today.

# Lindsay Lou: Bluegrass Women (album and documentary project)

• The album covers songs by Dorothy Skaggs, Allison Brown, Kate Wolf, and Hazel Dickens, among others.
• Sessions were large-scale, with five to eight singers and players on each track, resulting in a full-band, communal sound.
• A documentary trailer accompanies the release, and the project aims to spotlight the writers behind standards often assumed to be authored by men.

Reviews quoted here describe the set as uniformly strong and positioned as a corrective to under-recognition of women's songwriting in the bluegrass canon.

# What to listen for first

• If you want a fusion of regional vocal styles and rowdiness: Sociograss, track "Wake Up" and "Little Maggie."
• If you prefer instrumental virtuosity and ensemble fiddling: Triple Fiddle, "Lost Creek No. 3."
• Strings, "Come On Feel The Algorithm" and "Give Up Don't Try."
• To hear historical songwriting by women revisited with a modern all-female cast: Lindsay Lou, full Bluegrass Women album.