Executive Overview
It has been nearly a decade since the avant-folk world last heard a major, cohesive dispatch from A Hawk and a Hacksaw. The acclaimed duo, comprising multi-instrumentalist Jeremy Barnes and violinist Heather Trost, last graced stereos and festival stages in 2018 with their visionary, genre-defying record Forest Bathing. Praised at the time for their ability to weave disparate musical threads across sprawling geographic canvases—stretching from the agrarian heartlands of Northern Romania through the culturally rich tapestries of the Balkans and deep into the Anatolian landscapes of Turkey—the pair seemed to have reached an apex of cross-cultural synthesis.
Then, the silence settled.
Aside from localized performances, community-focused education, and a constellation of solo side-quests, A Hawk and a Hacksaw stepped away from the relentless machinery of international album cycles. Yet, underground music networks do not stay quiet forever. The duo has officially shattered their hiatus with a thunderous announcement: their upcoming eighth studio album, aptly titled Volume 8, is scheduled for release on February 5, 2027, via Rocket Recordings (with North American distribution handled by Living Music Duplication).
Accompanying this monumental announcement is the release of the album’s searing lead single, “Gayda”—a radical, distortion-laced reinvention of a traditional Turkish, Kurdish, and Armenian wedding bagpipe melody scored for heavy violin and thunderous tapan drum. Far from a simple nostalgia trip or a routine comeback, Volume 8 is framed by a sense of urgent necessity. Born out of a turbulent global climate marked by devastating conflicts in Ukraine, Palestine, and Iran, and shaped by years of localized community work in New Mexico, A Hawk and a Hacksaw’s return is both an artistic reckoning and a defiant plea for cultural unity.
This piece explores the trajectory of the duo’s hiatus, the geopolitical and personal catalysts behind Volume 8, the deep historical roots of their musical preservation, and what this landmark release means for the future of contemporary folk and experimental world music.
Detailed Chronology: The Road from Forest Bathing to Volume 8
To understand the weight of Volume 8, one must retrace the steps of A Hawk and a Hacksaw since the release of Forest Bathing in June 2018. Thomas Blake, writing for KLOF, famously characterized that record as “one of the widest-ranging and most daring yet,” noting that Barnes and Trost’s core ethos has always resided in the radical act of making connections between disparate cultures. Rather than capitalizing on the critical momentum of Forest Bathing with an immediate follow-up tour, Barnes and Trost chose to pivot inward and outward simultaneously—focusing on localized creative fulfillment, personal evolution, and community engagement.
The Hiatus Years: Solo Exploration and Community Work
During the extended break from releasing material under the A Hawk and a Hacksaw moniker, both artists poured their energies into distinct, highly specialized projects.
- Jeremy Barnes expanded his compositional vocabulary through solo recordings, most notably Human Error and the critically admired Albuquerque Radiophonic Workshop (which earned a prominent feature in the KLOF Folk-Jazz-Experimental Ambient Mixtape series). Beyond his studio work, Barnes dedicated significant time to social advocacy and music education, working directly with incarcerated teenagers and refugee youth in Albuquerque, New Mexico. This grassroots engagement with marginalized and displaced young people profoundly influenced his perspective on the global movement of people and songs.
- Heather Trost cultivated an equally fertile creative garden, releasing distinct bodies of work across notable independent labels. Her projects Agistri (released via LM Duplication), Petrichor (Third Man Records), and Desert Flowers (Bada Bing Records) allowed her to stretch the parameters of her violin and compositional framework, leaning into drone, minimalist structures, and ambient textures.
Despite these divergent paths, the pair never stopped playing together entirely. They remained a fixture in their local community—performing at weddings, learning obscure regional tunes, and writing material without the pressure of a looming release schedule. For a long time, the traditional album-tour-cycle model simply felt unnecessary. They were content to let the music exist in real-time, shared among friends, family, and local dancers.
The Catalyst of 2026: A Urgency to Document and Tour
Cultural shifts and global events, however, demand a response. According to Barnes, two distinct shifts occurred during the course of 2026 that fundamentally altered their trajectory, reigniting a desire to formalize their recent compositions and return to the international touring circuit.
More profoundly, Trost points to the macro-level human suffering dominating the mid-2020s as the ultimate catalyst for the album. In an era marked by devastating conflicts across Ukraine, Palestine, Iran, and beyond, the insular nature of studio isolation no longer sufficed.
"After all the war and atrocities that have been happening in Ukraine, Palestine, and Iran," Trost reflects, "it felt we needed to say something through our music."
Thus, Volume 8 crystallized not as a calculated commercial comeback, but as an ethical imperative. It is a record forged in the crucible of global anxiety, designed to remind listeners of the deep, porous, and historically intertwined nature of human cultures that political borders seek to divide.
Supporting Context & Metrics: Unraveling the Geopolitics of Folk Music
A Hawk and a Hacksaw have never been preservationists in the museum-curator sense; they are living, breathing participants in the musical traditions they study. Their approach rejects the clean, sanitized categorization often favored by world-music marketing departments. Instead, Barnes and Trost treat folk music as a fluid, borderless continuum.
The Deep History of “Gayda”
The lead single from Volume 8, “Gayda,” serves as a masterclass in this philosophy. The track takes its name and primary melodic framework from a traditional bagpipe tune ubiquitous across celebratory gatherings in Turkey, Kurdistan, and Armenia. However, in the hands of A Hawk and a Hacksaw, the song undergoes a striking sonic transmutation: the reedy wail of the bagpipe is translated into the aggressive, distorted timber of Trost’s violin, anchored by the driving, earth-shaking pulse of the traditional tapan drum.
To pigeonhole such a tune into a single national or ethnic box is to fundamentally misunderstand its genealogy. Barnes elaborates on the complex, pre-national origins of the material featured on the new album:
"Many of the traditional songs we recorded, like ‘Gayda,’ are incredibly old, probably pre-Christian and considered Kurdish or Turkish or Armenian depending on who you ask. Some of our influences have moved further back in time, but the geographic areas are the same."
This perspective highlights a recurring theme in ethnomusicology: music as a pre-political artifact. Long before modern nation-states drew hard lines across the map of Anatolia, the Caucasus, and the Balkans, melodies, rhythms, and instruments traveled freely along trade routes, through nomadic migrations, and across overlapping empires. By stripping away modern geopolitical friction and focusing on the shared sonic heritage of these regions, A Hawk and a Hacksaw utilize Volume 8 to construct a bridge over troubled political waters.
The Sonic Architecture of Rocket Recordings
The partnership with Rocket Recordings for Volume 8 (and Living Music Duplication for North America) is itself a telling metric of the duo’s artistic evolution. Known globally as a powerhouse home for heavy psych, krautrock, experimental drone, and uncompromising underground rock, Rocket provides an ideal platform for a record that treats traditional folk melodies with the sonic weight and distortion of heavy metal or noise rock. This is not polite, acoustic parlor folk; it is visceral, high-intensity music designed to challenge the listener’s nervous system while inviting them to dance.
Official Statements & Artistic Vision
The philosophical core of Volume 8 is rooted in the synthesis of personal empathy and historical awareness. In official press statements accompanying the album rollout, the duo has emphasized that the record functions as both a mirror of our current fractured world and an archive of endurance.
Barnes emphasizes the fluidity of cultural identity throughout the recording process:
- "We aren’t interested in borders, whether they are physical or stylistic. When you trace these melodies back far enough, you realize that people have been sharing, adapting, and transforming these songs for millennia. To lock them inside a single national identity is to deny their true history."
Trost underscores the emotional weight of bringing these instruments back to the forefront after a period of quiet reflection:
- "Making music right now feels different than it did ten years ago. There is a heaviness in the air globally, but there is also incredible resilience in community music-making. Through these old wedding tunes and celebratory rhythms, we wanted to honor that resilience."
The visual component of the album’s rollout—exemplified by their live performance of “Gayda” at Idea Farm—further captures this ethos. Stripped of studio artifice, the video showcases the raw, physical exertion required to channel centuries-old ceremonial music through contemporary amplification and effects, proving that A Hawk and a Hacksaw remain one of the most compelling live acts in the alternative folk sphere.
Future Outlook: What Volume 8 Portends for 2027 and Beyond
As the music world looks ahead to the release of Volume 8 on February 5, 2027, the implications of A Hawk and a Hacksaw’s return extend far beyond a single album cycle.
- The Revival of International Folk Touring: With Barnes and Trost committing to hitting the road again, contemporary folk and experimental music scenes will once more bear witness to one of the most unique live shows in operation. Their ability to merge ethnomusicological rigor with punk-rock energy makes them uniquely suited for an era craving authentic, cross-cultural dialogue.
- A Blueprint for Politically Engaged Instrumental Music: In an artistic landscape often dominated by literal lyricism, A Hawk and a Hacksaw demonstrate that instrumental and traditional folk music can carry immense political weight. By explicitly dedicating their return to the victims of modern conflicts in Ukraine, Palestine, and Iran, they offer a blueprint for how artists can address global atrocities without resorting to heavy-handed sloganeering.
- The Ongoing Evolution of Rocket Recordings: By welcoming A Hawk and a Hacksaw into their fold for Volume 8, Rocket Recordings continues to cement its reputation as an essential sanctuary for artists who refuse to stay in creative lanes, bridging the gap between heavy psych-rock and deep-rooted global traditions.
Ultimately, Volume 8 promises to be a watershed moment for Jeremy Barnes and Heather Trost. It stands as a testament to the fact that while hiatuses may pause the release schedule, true artistic vision only deepens with time, adversity, and global awareness. When the needle drops on February 5, listeners will not merely be hearing new songs; they will be stepping onto a bridge built across centuries, cultures, and conflicts—reminded that music has always been, and will always be, humanity’s most enduring shared language.
