Otto-Americana w/ Jeni Jol! Jeni Jol ("New Path" in Macedonian) is the brainchild of Tev Stevig, who for the past year and a half has been exploring the potential of playing the fretless nylon string guitar in the clawhammer style. Clawhammer, or frailing, is typically associated with old time banjo, but Tev has been using this uniquely American playing style on the fretless guitar to arrive at new arrangements of his favorite tunes from the Balkans, Greece, and Turkey, as well as some original material. He was inspired to do this after listening to recordings of the great Turkish musician, Erkan Ogur (credited by many for having invented the fretless guitar), and shortly thereafter to banjo virtuoso Adam Hurt's recording "Earth Tones" in which he plays exclusively on a fretless gourd banjo. By combining Balkan, Middle Eastern and American traditions in this way, he hopes to create a new folk music that is both listenable and danceable. BBrian O'Neill joins Tev in the duo by the same name (Jeni Jol) on mixed hand percussion including marimba, pitched frame drums, doumbek, pandeiro, and riq.