Bartees Strange

THIS D.C. ARTIST’S LATEST ALBUM IS A CONVINCING REMINDER TO REMEMBER WHERE YOU CAME FROM — WHETHER IT’S THE MUSIC YOU WERE RAISED ON OR THE IMPORTANT PEOPLE IN YOUR LIFE

- Joshua M. Miller

HE MAY NOT have the Eye of Agamotto, but Bartees Strange — the stage moniker of Washington, D.C.-based musician Bartees Leon Cox Jr. — creates his own kind of sorcery on guitar. Strange — who’s inspired by a wide spectrum of musical styles, including rock, blues, country, funk, hip-hop, rap, punk and hardcore — wanders freely between musical worlds and genres. His genre bending talents are on full display on his latest album, Farm to Table.

“Through this whole journey of finding new music and always being curious about how things worked, I just developed this style or taste profile that was all of these things all the time,” Strange says. “It was almost easier for me to just be a reflection of what I was hearing and feeling in the world than to reinvent the wheels that have already been built.”