Two years ago, regional Folk phenoms Daniel Martin Moore and Ben Sollee met at a Lexington show and began making small talk about music when the subject of Appalachian strip mining was broached. This mutual passion led to the collaborative album, 'Dear Companion.'  

Mountains explode and disappear all the time in the Appalachians. Mountaintop removal transforms small streams into raging torrents that sweep away houses several times a year and dumps arsenic, mercury, lead, copper and chromium into drinking water, some of which makes its way to Cincinnati.