Eden Brower and John Heneghan, a married couple, live in New York City's East Village, where they head up an acoustic band whose members vary depending upon the requirements of the moment. The most consistent collaborator, though, is the celebrated cartoonist/78-record collector Robert Crumb. Others include Pat Conte, Dom Flemons (aka The American Songster), Eli Smith, Ernesto Gomez and other lovers of period sounds.

Heneghan, a collector of note himself, figures prominently in Amanda Petrusich's entertaining Do Not Sell at Any Price: The Wild, Obsessive Hunt for the World's Rarest 78 rpm Records (2014).

Every year or two Brower, Heneghan and company release an album that, by strict definition, is a revivalist effort even though, oddly, it never betrays the impression of being a conscious attempt to revisit the past. In fact, albums such as the latest, Good-bye Cruel World (with yet another mordant Crumb illustration on its cover), feel less like recreations of 1920s pop and traditional music than the thing itself. If one did not know better, it might be possible to wonder if the East River String Band actually recorded a century ago. That's because, though trolling the early history of the industry, it betrays as few modern touches as any act could be expected to do. At the same time it sounds distinctly original, as if distanced enough -- and informed enough -- to turn the music into a 21st-century vision of itself while largely concealing a 21st-century hand.

Of course, even modestly sophisticated listeners will have some idea of when this sort of music helped define popular culture. A century ago, when pop music as we know it was being invented, there was much to choose from, everything from pure folk and assorted blues styles to Tin Pan Alley's latest concoctions, and more. Nobody really knew what the broad consuming public wanted, so each constituency within that public got something that might speak to it.

Though Brower and Heneghan's group doesn't range all over that vast soundscape, it has the sort of repertoire you would associate with a jug band, in other words an eclectic mix of oldtime, downhome blues, early jazz and vintage pop. The ERSB is not, however, a jug band. For one thing, there's no jug in the mix. Beyond that, well, there's this: the featured songs are so integrated into the band's idea of its temporal home that even its originals are almost always indistinguishable from their period counterparts. As is noted on the back cover, the cuts are either traditional or "written by the East River String Band or somewhere in between."

As one who has a natural curiosity about where songs come from, I would prefer the ERSB to include composer credits. I suppose the idea, however, is further to erase the distinction between then and now. Aside from chestnuts such as "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out" and "Paddlin' Madelin Home," there is "Big Bend Gal," which I recognize as a folk song the Shelor Family recorded in 1927. "The Pandemic is On," a witty commentary on confusion and paranoia in the Covid age, is Heneghan and Crumb's rewrite of the Depression-era "The Panic is On."

In common with ERSB's other albums, Good-bye Cruel World showcases a musical style adjacent to, yet different from, any other I've heard. However one defines it, it's hard not to love these guys.

[ visit the East River String Band's website ]