• New Music from The Foreign Landers - Travelers Rest

    The Foreign Landers  - Travelers Rest

    TRAVELERS REST, S.C. — Transatlantic folk and bluegrass duo The Foreign Landers announce their debut full-length album Travelers Rest, out November 12, featuring award-winning special guests and a compelling collection of bittersweet original songs all about searching for home.

    The Foreign Landers are a new project featuring banjo and guitar player Tabitha Agnew Benedict (formerly with Midnight Skyracer) and Mandolin Mondays host David Benedict (formerly with Missy Raines and Mile Twelve). David plays mandolin and octave mandolin throughout with his Apitius Vanguard mandolin and Octolindo S Model Deluxe octave mandolin.

    In pair with this album release, The Foreign Landers are releasing a PDF transcription book containing all the mandolin/octave mandolin melodies and solos from Travelers Rest, written in both standard notation and tablature. The PDF book is available to all tiers on David's Patreon page, and you can download a free sample of the transcription book below.

    Listen

    From the album, the track "Johnny's Peacock / The Red-Tailed Hawk."



    "David here! It's an honor to get to share this new music with you all here on my favorite website. This is our first big album with The Foreign Landers, and as a mandolin player this has been an incredibly rewarding record to work on. It's been an opportunity to push beyond the familiar bluegrass conventions that Tabitha and I know so well from our time playing in other bluegrass bands, and a chance to explore our musical roots in a new way. The funny thing is, I grew up playing in a Celtic folk band here in SC, long before I knew anything about bluegrass music, while Tabitha was practically the only kid in Northern Ireland to become obsessed with the bluegrass 5-string banjo at a young age.

    "That concept of mixing our different influences and backgrounds to hopefully create something fresh is the main idea behind this new project, The Foreign Landers. The resulting music was challenging to write, learn, and play — trying to figure out how to use instruments like the mandolin and banjo in uncharted territories. I also ended up acquiring my first octave mandolin to fill out the sound on this album, and I've so much fun trying to figure out how to play this thing! And to help us get an even more international sound here, we enlisted the help of some of our favorite players on either side of the Atlantic, including John Doyle, Brittany Haas, Brian Finnegan, and many more.

    "But on top of all that, this album is special to us because it's a very personal project. Tabitha and I wrote all these songs together about our experience over the past couple of years — you might even hear me sing a few on this album which is a bit of a first for me! The album tells our story of the challenges and uncertainties we faced while moving across the Atlantic and settling in our new home here in Travelers Rest, SC. And I know we've all faced a lot of tough changes in recent times, but this album is an ode to holding on to hope that greater things are yet to come even in the darkest of times. We hope you enjoy!"

    Track Listing

    • Traveler
    • Waves
    • Should I Go
    • Johnny's Peacock / The Red-Tailed Hawk
    • Flying Back to You
    • We'll Be Fine
    • Boxes
    • Sunny Side of the Mountain
    • Garden
    • The Last Song

    The Musicians

    • Ethan Ballinger: electric guitar (Track 2)
    • Brian Finnegan: whistle (Track 4)
    • Cathal Murphy: bodhrán (Track 4)
    • John Doyle: acoustic guitar (Track 4)
    • Brittany Haas: fiddle (Tracks 5 and 9)
    • Reuben Agnew: vocals (Track 5)
    • Karl Smakula: pedal steel (Track 6)
    • Stephen Benedict: snare (Track 6)
    • Nick Cooke: diatonic accordion (Track 7)

    Additional Information


    Sample Transcription from Recording

    Download the full transcription in PDF format here. Get the entire transcription book from David's Patreon page when available.

    Travelers Rest transcriptions for mandolin
    Comments 5 Comments
    1. MISTAHCOUGHDROP's Avatar
      MISTAHCOUGHDROP -
      Beautiful sounds, Tabitha and David. Thank you for making music!
    1. Paul Statman's Avatar
      Paul Statman -
      Bostin! Bravo and congratulations on this, David and Tabitha! Wonderful music.
    1. Bob Buckingham's Avatar
      Bob Buckingham -
      Sweet!
    1. BGGIB's Avatar
      BGGIB -
      Love the sample track and I love the tab for Johnny's Peacock! I think it is smart to include a tab of a tune, makes me instantly involved in the whole project. Great work!
    1. Greg Pauza's Avatar
      Greg Pauza -
      So dope!