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The members of Israel Darling have seen two major changes since they appeared on the cover of Go Triad in January for a story about the challenges facing the Greensboro music scene.

Since the piece published, local musicians have reached out to the band, hoping to collaborate on future shows and music projects.

"People really responded. They wanted to help us out," says Jacob Darden, the group's lead vocalist and guitar player. "It wasn't just the big dogs wanting to help us either, the community started to come through and being like, 'If you'll help us, we'll help you.' "

The band also has taken a big step by moving from Greensboro to a house in the "folkier" mountains of Asheville. The band says it chose to make Asheville its new home because of its dense population of folk musicians.

"There's a lot more of that traditional thing going on and not as much electronic and noise music and things like that," Darden says.

"There's still a lot of that," Georgianna Harris says. "But there's (lots) of professional bluegrass players out here who have been playing their whole lives. And even their great-grandparents played."

Israel Darling will return to the Triad Friday to play at The Garage in Winston-Salem.

Israel Darling's large and ever-changing lineup currently includes Isaac Crouch on piano and synth, Jeff Bechtel on bass and drummers Edwin Mericle and Ben Welner. Their layered sound could best be described as folk revival music with a modern electronic twist. In 2009, the group released its first album, "Dinosaur Bones and Mechanical Hands," on Engine Room Recordings in New York.

Speaking via an Internet video conference on Skype, Darden picks up the laptop to give a Webcam tour of what Harris calls their "musical basement of wonder." Walls are covered in carpet padding intended to soundproof the room, which is cluttered with various guitars, sound equipment, beer bottles and paintings by artist and housemate Michael Riesch.

One of Riesch's paintings was used as the cover for Israel Darling's album.

"We didn't come up here to socialize," Harris says. "We came here to concentrate."

Indeed, concentration is crucial for a band such as Israel Darling, which at one point had up to eight members and combines a variety of elements to create its sound. To write and coordinate music for such a large ensemble would be a challenge for any musician. However, Darden, 21, believes the challenge is simply part of a desire to take his art seriously.

"You can take music as seriously as anything else, even science. Art can be very serious and time-consuming," Darden says. "It's not just breaking a CD on a street and calling it 'modern art.'

"Sometimes it's discipline, and you have to work at it like building a house or being a carpenter, and we look at it that way."

"I just want to make something that I want to listen to," Harris says. "If I'm going to create something, I want it to be something that's going to be good."

In fact, while working on a new song for a future record, Israel Darling decided to up the ante by creating what they call "The North Carolina Orchestra," a 33-member corps of musicians from six other regional bands, including Greensboro's Come Hell or High Water. The bands will get together in divided sections of bass, drums, guitar and harmony to record the song in two day-long sessions.

Pulling off this grand maneuver has required Israel Darling to do a lot of e-mailing and organizing. But if it works, band members say the extra effort will be worth it just to share the love they have for their home state.

"You see that?" says Darden, pointing at a tattoo of North Carolina on his forearm. "That's because we love that state, North Carolina. We just love music. We love to share it with our friends."

Contact Joe Scott at movieshowjoe@gmail.com