George Jackson feat. Frank Evans & Eli Broxham - Center Of The Universe (2026) [Hi-Res]

The Oddest Chicken (George Jackson)
I asked at the gate of the festival for the “artist check-in” and my accent misled the poor volunteer who thought I was asking about chickens. This tune is similarly a result of writing a tune and removing its context by tuning my fiddle strings to “Bug” tuning (DBbGE) and then learning the resulting melody back in standard tuning (GDAE).

June Bug #1 (George Jackson)
Judy Hyman and The Horse Flies created a fiddle tuning called “Bug” tuning and recorded fiddle tunes using standard fingerings to remove the standard contours of a melody and replace them with dissonance, while keeping the rhythm and logic of the tune in tact. I wanted to try and do things in the opposite way, create a beautiful tune in this strange tuning, and then try it in standard tuning with the same fingerings (see June Bug #2).

Humphrey’s Jig (Trad.)
A strange and fun tune learned from the playing of Ed Haley, it struck me that the fast “jig” nature of this tune was almost swing-like in rhythm, so we played some free swing over it.

Beef Demon (George Jackson)
Named because it sat in my voice memo’s as “Bb Dm” due to the central chords for the A and B sections being such. Gus really brought this one up a level with the addition of the Banjo Uke.

Horse Cage #1 (George Jackson)
My thought experiment on the meeting of The Horse Flies and John Cage. This is the ultimate realisation of this concept in the studio, an improvised take with the most ambitious amounts of space left.

Tetric (George Jackson)
An experiment in metric modulations, poly rhythms and bowing rhythms.

Cheeky F (George Jackson)
I was inspired by the way Texas style old time fiddlers hide all sorts of weird notes on upbeats, so this was a bit of a riff on a Texas style tune seeing how many non-chord notes I could hide around the melody on weak beats.

Cumberland Gap (Trad.)
Another bowing rhythm experiment, this time I’m overlaying a five beat bow rhythm across the melody of Eskar Hutchins Cumberland Gap and Eli plays every fifth beat on the Bass which lines up with the emphasis of my bowing pattern. Each time the down bow collides with the first beat of an A or B section Gus marks the down beat with the Electric Guitar, the whole cycle takes 5 times through the tune for the down bow and A part down beat to hit creating one big poly rhythmic cycle.

June Bug #2 (George Jackson)
The tune and fingerings from June Bug #1 played with my fiddle tuned back to standard (GDAE). The tensions in this resulting tune are haunting, beautiful and strange. Stash helped us decide to set it to a static pulsing of background chords and I depart to take an improvised chorus to expand on the tensions.

Breaking Up Christmas (Trad.)
Imagine you’re walking around at an Old Time camp out and different jams are playing the same tune phasing in and out. This arrangement evokes a bit of that scene setting and sets fragments of the melody up against each in poly rhythmic cycles until they hit back together and continue.

Horse Cage #2 (George Jackson)
Another improvised rendering of the tune I wrote, less space and more expansive than the first version.

Woodcarver’s Reel (George Jackson)
A tune I wrote for my Dad who’s a passionate and talented craftsman.

The Local Trio is:
George Jackson - Fiddle
Frank Evans - Banjo
Eli Broxham - Double Bass

With Guests:
Stash Wyslouch - Guitar on tracks 1 and 7
Gus Tritsch - Banjo-uke on track 4 and Electric Guitar on track 8