A Hawk & A Hacksaw

A Hawk and A Hacksaw was founded in Saumur, France in 2002 by Jeremy Barnes, thedrummer of Neutral Milk Hotel, who, completely burnt out by playing the drums, picked upthe accordion and became obsessed with folk music from Romania, Hungary, the formerYugoslavia, and Turkey. The band’s name is a reference to Don Quixote, intended as areminder that while the path chosen is a fool’s quest, there is always the possibility ofbeauty and discovery along the way.In 2004 Barnes moved home to New Mexico, andmet his partner in life and music, violinistHeather Trost. Their first conversation was about Bela Bartok. The pair toured extensivelyin the U.S. and Europe, and eventually further afield, to Brazil, Turkey, Australia, Japan.They released a good amountof recordings in an era when CDs were sold at shows andone could carry a large amount of them in carry on luggage. In 2005, they helped a fellownative New Mexican, Zach Condon get a record deal, and played on his debut album. Henamed his project Beirut.That same year, Barnes travelled to the far Northeast ofRomania, to the Roma village of Zece Prajini, where he recorded with the brass bandFanfare Ciocarlia. Barnes and Trost moved to Hungary in 2006 and worked extensivelywith four Hungarian folk musicians, Ferenc Kovacs, Béla Ágoston, Zsolt Kürtösi, UngerBalázs. They moved back to New Mexico in late 2008 and continued touring, working witha variety of musicians from different parts of Europe and the U.S. They were finally able toplay in Bucharest in2010. In 2011 and ’12, they toured cinemas with a new soundtrack toSergei Parajanov’s classic film “Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors.” Barnes and Trostbegan releasing their own records and releases from around the world on their label LivingMusic Duplication around this time. They worked with Turkish Roma clarinetist CüneytSepetçi, the Sayat Nova Project, former Taraf De Haidouks accordionist Marin Sandu,Thor Harris, and Calexico drummer John Convertino, among others. In 2015, they workedwith the BBC Concert Orchestra and the Berlin based classical ensemble Stargaze onlarger orchestrations of their music, and curated the Transmissions festival in Ravenna,Italy.In the past few years, the pair have taken a break from touring, but still release music.Heather Trost has released three solo records to critical acclaim. They have recentlywritten music for film director Peter Strickland among others. Trost has developed athriving piano and violin studio in Albuquerque, while Barnes worked with incarcerated andrefugee youth and then began teaching drums and engineering records for othermusicians. They are very excited to be back on the road this coming Autumn.