THIS year’s National Film and Sound Archive of Australia National Folk Recording Award, announced at the National Folk Festival, has been won by Luke R Davies and the Recycled String Band for their new CD, “Not a Note Wasted,” a blend of blues and country roots music.

Davies is based in Wangaratta, Victoria. This is his second CD, but his first with the Recycled String Band–Chris Mangan, Jack Jensen, Bruce Gregory and Bryan Rolie Dwyer, who use instruments made by Davies from discarded items or recycled materials acquired cheaply. Among other instruments there is a suit-case bass guitar, a Volkswagon hub-cap mandolin, a hub-cap resonator 5 string banjo, a cigar-box fiddle, a hub-cap banjo ukele, a cigar-box sardine-tin resonator ukulele, and a hat-box kick drum.

NFSA’s chief  Michael Loebenstein, said that the CD, an engaging mix of musical styles, was a very worthy winner of the NFSA award and “strikingly innovative.”

This is the 13th year of the National Folk Recording Award, which recognises excellence in recorded Australian folk music. Entrants were selected from recordings submitted by performers at the 2013 National Folk Festival and the award carries a cash prize plus inclusion of the winning CD in the NFSA’s recorded sound collection.