A life in music has its seasons and for David Tiller, this is the season of songs. Best known for his virtuosic mandolin and guitar playing in the bluegrass and newgrass community, Tiller is down from the mountain with Under the Influence, an album of intimate songs that center his river-clear voice and songwriting. With special guests including Bonnie Paine, Megan Burtt, Jefferson Hamer and Sally Van Meter, the record maps the understory of relationships where we reach for light and bloom in the shadows. The arrangements are full of precision and purpose — each track with its intricate hooks, turns and architecture, like a honeycomb or nautilus shell. It's music that asks you to lean in close and listen.

Tiller grew up in the Blue Ridge Mountain town of Waterford, VA in a neighborhood where everyone left their doors unlocked and kids would run through each other's backyards and living rooms. His mother was a flamboyant painter and author, while his father a violinist-turned-drummer who moonlit as a radio DJ spinning LPs by everyone from Miles and Mingus to Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan. Old-time and bluegrass music were woven into the town’s social fabric — guitars, fiddles and banjos were as ever-present as mountain laurels along the Appalachian Trail. Tiller was a founding member of ThaMuseMeant, a folk-rock outfit who toured extensively in the late 90s and early 2000s. He and his wife, Enion Pelta-Tiller, left to co-found Taarka, an alt-folk and world-wise jazz band who have made seven albums. No Depression raves that their music is like a feast that has “sustenance that stays with you long after you’ve pushed away from the table.”

Under the Influence is full of relational misadventures and entanglements. The title track captures a wild and storied youth full of passion, adventure and illicit affairs. “Polyamorous Polly Ann” is a story-song about a romantic partner's desire to not be held down by a single love. Meanwhile, “Dead Horse” explores the futility of trying to squeeze something out of a relationship that has lost its beating heart. Tiller’s love of traditional music shines through on tracks like “The Swallow,” based on a Child Ballad from the British Isles and “Reaching For the Moon,” a mythic song populated by angels and demons alike. Taken together, these songs trace the tangled geography of the heart — where desire and devotion rarely follow a straight line.

Tiller has toured widely at notable venues and festivals including the Telluride Bluegrass Festival, MerleFest, High Sierra Festival, Sisters Folk Festival, Oregon County Fair, Bumbershoot and more. Beyond performing, he has produced two albums for Elephant Revival; composed the soundtrack for the Netflix documentary 1971; performed with Darol Anger, Bonnie Paine, Danny Barnes and Peter Rowan; and been a special guest with String Cheese Incident, Sam Bush, Yonder Mountain String Band, Leftover Salmon, Della Mae and others. As an educator, Tiller has taught music at the College of Sante Fe, Regis University and Naropa University; co-directed the Crested Butte Music Camp 2020; and taught classes at the Escola Municipal De Vigo de Música Folk e Tradicional (Vigo, Spain), the American Fiddle Workshop (Galicia, Spain), Mike Block String Camp (Vero Beach, FL), Mount Shasta Fiddle Camp (Mount Shasta, CA) and Big Sur Fiddle Camp (Big Sur, CA). Tiller has spent a lifetime tracing the roots and branches of American music — and with Under the Influence, he's finally singing his own.