To top it all, Kosky was recently awarded the prestigious 2005 Albert d’Ossche Contemporary Dulcimer Scholarship at Western Carolina University in the US, along with a professional mentorship with famous English luthier Terry Hennessy – whose instruments form part of the Smithsonian Institute’s music collection.
Kosky will shortly head to the US to take up his scholarship, and further add to his performing credentials.

“I aspire to be able to understand simple music,” he says. “I want to take its essence and magic, distil it, and pass on its addictive qualities to others, infecting them with the same desire.” For Kosky, ‘Dirty White Music’ is the result of a lifetime of love and learning.

“I was born into a religious denomination with an ancient, well documented spirituality that I never really connected with, except on a cultural level. When I was 13 I heard my first Muddy Waters album – and the hair on the back of my neck stood up. The music I love still does that to me today.”

Adrian’s next project represents the fulfilment of a grand desire. He is preparing to write and perform an album of songs specifically for the dulcimer – an instrument he regards as underrated and ignored in Australia. His own instrument, made from Australian timbers, was built by Terry Hennessy, making it, arguably, one of the finest in the world.

“The album will explore and reflect what happens when one culture blends with another,” he explains. “The melding of the Americana influence, with the origins of the instrument rooted in Celtic tradition, together with my own Australian-English roots, will I hope produce something unique – and uniquely melodic.”

In the meantime, however, Adrian Kosky will be giving his all to build the success of ‘Dirty White Music’, due out in July. It won’t be a difficult task. It will be, in fact, beautifully simple

Adrian Kosky
The High Side of The Low End

Frivolity and fragility go hand in hand in the mountains it seems..

The mountain dulcimer is one hell of a weird beast. Looking like half a sideboard perched on your knees, it kind of resembles a primitive pedal steel without either the mother of pearl inlay or the bright chrome pick-ups. Yet it’s an instrument that is equally as versatile in the right hands. “The High Side Of The Low End” is effectively two albums in one – the first a highly amusing hillbilly jaunt through the bars and backwater towns of the American South; the second a much gentler reflection on life’s excesses and pains. Tracks such as the self-parodying ageist rebellion of “Hair In A Can,” to the ‘this is what I am, and I kinda like it’ stoicism of “Hillbilly Genocide,” Kosky offers a brand of rootsy swamp rock that would provide the ideal soundtrack to a day on the Glades on a gator hunt. It’s a hoot for sure.. Yet contrast this frivolity with the stark rural landscape of “Table Hill Road” or the poignant slab of rustic reality that is “Small Country Town” and it's clear that alongside the six pack and gun rack goes a great deal of soul-searching. Kosky is joined by Richard Pleasance, who, besides taking care of most of the arrangements, also plays guitars, drums, percussion, bass, marimba and, as Kosky calls it, junk. In the sleevenotes there are a few telling words on the mountain dulcimer. “Some dulcimers sound like a guitar that lives in the mountains,” Kosky notes. “Some sound like a freight train, others have a deep twangin’ kind of funk.” On “The High Side Of The Low End" Kosky demonstrates that it’s possible to get one that can sound like all three. As he so eloquently puts it, “They can drone, wail, bend and trance, make ya boogie, get up and dance.”

Del Day - Americana- UK

Adrian Kosky
The High Side of The Low End

It was only at the beginning of this year that we reviewed Adrian Kosky’s second album, ‘Dirty White Music’. Unknowingly in this album lay the groundwork for the next. Now our attention is on his follow-up album. And here a certain alertness is needed, since this sympathetic singer songwriter from down-under proved with his previous album ‘Dirty White Music’ that he is no amateur.
Kosky is first and foremost a craftsman in search of perfection. And in that approach hides a danger. Generally speaking in the craftsmanship of perfection the danger of too perfect, too beautiful, too finished. However, with Kosky this is not the case. He knows how to create, or leave, a sufficient amount of rough edges in this truly beautiful work, a work dominated by banjo and various mountain dulcimers. This is also the case with his newest self composed album ‘The High Side and The Low End’. References? Basically just ordinary folk blues in optimal form. But in relation to atmosphere and ambiance occasionally think Guy Clarke (opening track ‘Dodgy Train’) and also think, in relation to the perfection, Jeff Talmadge. In the title track we even discover a touch of the Rolling stones.

Together, with multi instrumentalist Richard Pleasance (guitars, drums, percussion, marimba and bass) Kosky created eleven excellent songs, all in-house. There is, however, a difference with ‘Dirty White Music’ in that it takes a little more playtime for the gift to be truly revealed. In that way ‘The High Side of The Low End’ is a little less accessible and, at first listening, a little less interesting/intense. However, the allowed surplus of playtime, proves that Adrian Kosky has once again created a beautiful album. He has arrived.

After the release of ‘Dirty White Music’ Adrian Kosky spend quite some time in the United States, from Jacksonville to Seattle, from Memphis to New Orleans. The various influences he absorbed in these travels have been used to good effect in his exciting ‘Small Country Town’ as the track which most excited me.

Kosky states two ways of travel: ‘Into the world and into the heart’. With his ‘The High Side of The Low End’ Kosky shows us both ways of travelling. Excellent album.

Leo Kattestaart - Alt -Country Netherlands