Aside from their circular bodies, the banjo and the frame drum don't look much alike. But listen to the two together, and you'll find they're related—and not all that distantly. You'll hear both throughout there is no Other, the new album by banjo ace Rhiannon Giddens (of Carolina Chocolate Drops fame) and collaborator Francesco Turrisi, an Italian multi-instrumentalist.
"We realized that this banjo and that frame drum were so connected together when we started playing them," Giddens said while prefacing a Paste Studio performance of there is no Other's instrumental title track, which marries the two instruments in a ceremony of vivacious plucking and steady thumping. "This tune came out of us playing together. It's inextricable, the two sounds."
That's one of three songs the pair played during their Tuesday Paste Studio session, sandwiched by "Wayfaring Stranger" and "Little Margaret."