Review: Twisted Pine Crafts Joyful Acoustic Pop on ‘Love Your Mind’

By Greg Cahill | From the January/February 2025 issue of Strings

This is joyful acoustic pop that grabs your attention, well, right from the start. “Start/Stop,” the opening track to this collection of 12 catchy songs, is a sparse arrangement that perfectly frame’s vocalist, fiddler, and songwriter Kathleen Parks’ cautionary tale with her own pizzicato violin, Dan Bui’s chopping mandolin, Chris Satori’s steady double bass, and Ahn Phung’s meandering flute. The breezy music often evokes youthful innocence (“Goosebump Feeling,” “Knockout Rose”) as it weaves its way through a potpourri of pop, jazz, funk, and string-band styles.

The band blossomed from the Massachusetts trad-music scene, playing mostly Americana, Celtic, and old-time folk music. But, these days, Twisted Pine isn’t afraid to stretch out, covering Frank Zappa’s prog-jazz masterwork “Peaches in Regalia.” Or to mix it up, teaming with Dobro heavyweight Jerry Douglas on “Green Flash” and New England contemporary folk singer Ali McGuirk on “Chanel Perfume.”