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The opening track pairs an uneasy droning fiddle with a highly processed recording of a midcentury folksong lamenting the displacement of the town of Ellenton, SC to make way for the Savannah River nuclear complex, which, in the 1990s, after decades in operation, was identified as a Superfund site. The sense of unease continues in “Marker of a Drowning,” featuring Evan Morgan’s spidery fingerpicking, which commemorates the deaths of a young couple in the river in the late 19th century, perhaps a reminder of an earlier time when the river was a threat to people instead of the other way around. In “Sound of a Million Stars,” inspired by an experimental film about another nuclear site gone awry (Fukushima), the field recordings mesh with the stringed instruments in a dense and aggressive mat of sound. A particularly stark presentation of the antithesis between nature and culture is the juxtaposition of field recordings of woodpeckers and gunfire, the former apparently responding to the latter in a track named after the birds. Pared back to fiddle, banjo (and perhaps guitar), the eerie “Scintillation” refers to technology used to measure radiation. Morgan’s guitar drives “Blooms in the Rapids,” which refers to a rare lily endangered by the ecological degradation of the Savannah River.

The more bucolic and wistful feel of “Tribute to the Angels” and “Where the Place Becomes Forgetting,” the latter with field recordings from a pond tainted with radioactivity and chemicals, suggests the possibility of appreciating the fleeting and fragile beauty of compromised ecosystems. On “Wintering Grounds,” keening fiddle, rustling guitar, and thunking banjo combine to pay homage the countless birds that have been passing through the Savannah River corridor for millennia, with the pace picking up in the middle like wings taking flight.

The rather gentle closing tracks, “Soft and Pliable” and “Dog-Headed Man,” hide melodies beneath scraping fiddle strings, otherworldly slide, banjo harmonics, and loops and field recordings. In fact, there seems to be a kind progression over the course of the album from alarm and indignation to resignation and appreciation of the persistence of nature amid the devastation, with an inflection point between “Woodpeckers” and “Scintillation.”

Mention should be made of the lineup: Werner and Morgan have previously brought other musicians into the recording studio and on the road with them, but Heavy Water marks the debut of the band as trio, with the addition of Mike DeVito as a full member on upright bass and, less frequently, banjo and fiddle; he also contributes the composition “Dog-Headed Man.” DeVito was part of the team that recorded the band’s previous release (Needlefall, 2004), and here he is completely integrated into the original duo. In keeping with the band’s project of redefining the traditional string band for the 21st century, he tends to prefer pizzicato pulses and arco drones to the one-five and walking basslines associated with this kind of music.

Heavy Water is, then, a spring and summer record with a powerful message about the inexorability of both natural processes and the forces unleashed by the human drive to dominate nature and other people. Kudos to Magic Tuber Stringband for consistently engaging both the head and the heart with their music.

Exhibition: April 4 – May 31, 2026

Plus via Peter Foolen