The Emeralds

The Emeralds: Off The Edge

by Mark Sabbatini
April 29, 2005

Fiddler Matthew Smith formed the Emeralds as an instrumental folk trio at age seven, about as “critic-proof as a band gets. But after aging a bit and releasing a couple of albums, what one newspaper calls the “Cute Era is over.

Off The Edge is the second album by the Alaska-based group, now featuring seven members, including four fiddlers, with a shift in focus to classics by the likes of Django Reinhardt and David Grisman. It's an album ...