Marisa Anderson
Trinosophes
1464 Gratiot Ave.
Detroit
June 2, 2026
“Listening to her makes the top of my brain tickle.”
There aren't many musicians who can make you feel that very specific sensation, but that’s how my guest described the solo guitar playing of Marisa Anderson shortly after she started her set at the minimalist Trinosophes (part music venue / part cafe / part art gallery / likely the only place that was going to host a show like this in Detroit on a Tuesday).
I wasn’t familiar with Anderson’s work before yesterday morning; I immediately fell in love with her work from a single snippet of a song I discovered after it was shared on social media by Trinosophes. That’s a strong argument against anyone who says that music discovered through social media is cheap!
There’s certainly nothing cheap about Anderson’s style of playing, or the deep amount of thought, research and philosophy that informs it. Her performance is part educational talk, as she walks the audience through what led her to each composition, whether it's personal or academic.
She’s a classically trained force on guitar. If you had to pin down her style, it’s certainly rooted in Americana and roots music, but presented often on electric guitar with a wave of reverb behind it and a stunning amount of texture. That’s all achieved through Anderson’s picking style of leaving unused strings open and ringing out, creating a shimmer of sound that washes over you and, yes, can bring a tickle to the top of your brain.
The main portion of her set was dedicated to her latest effort called “The Anthology of UnAmerican Folk Music” (available via her Bandcamp). This is where the academic influence comes into her work. Through sheer chance, she was allowed access to the private record collection of the late Harry Smith, a prolific collector who had records from around the globe. Anderson’s research had her assemble and digitize nearly 1,000 songs, pulling together nine of them for this album. Those songs come from field recordings conducted since 1970 in Afghanistan to Vietnam via Yemen, Cambodia, Turkmenistan and Syria. Anderson interprets these recordings through her own musical lens, unleashing a gentle yet muscular style of playing to a pretty full house for a sleepy Tuesday night at Trinosophes.
Anderson has gotten plenty of national praise from NPR, the New Yorker and many major media outlets, but still exists on a sort of musical fringe. When she comes to your town, however, make a point to go see her – this will undoubtedly be one of my favorite shows of the year.
