This is a fascinating release from New York's late eighties East Side art scene, the last gasp before the gentrification. Rebby Sharp plays and sings a strange mix of folk and bluegrass, throwing in conscious lyrics with a fried sense of humour. She is ably supported by guests such as the Shimmy Disc head honch, Kramer, and underground legends, Fred Frith and Tom Cora. There's a lovely cover version of The Holy Modal Rounders' Hesitation Blues.
Tracklist:
01 Some Men 02 Up Jumped Chair Legs 03 Hard Acid Rain 04 These Venetian Eyes 05 Just In Time 06 I'm So Hot 07 Crater Creek 08 Gimmee Back My 15¢ 09 Goin' To The Roof 10 Sittin' On Top Of The John 11 Let The Piper Call The Tune 12 Hesitation Blues 13 Tar Baskets 14 Holding Forth 15 He Leadeth Me 16 Walk By The Fire
Ol' George, the Appalachian banjo wizard, once played guitar and sung songs in some band called Federal Duck. Then after some kind of epiphany he went and recorded this strange beast...an album of 'Occult Improvisational Compositions for 5 - string banjo and percussion'. It's like Robbie Basho, Ravi Shankar and some old hillybilly mystics cooked up together into a potent soup that's good for the mind and soul:
Tracklist:
01 Winter Doldrums
02 Finland Station 03 My Favorite Thing
04 Firelight
05 Cold Spring
United Bible Studies are a folk collective from Dublin. With an ever changing line-up the troupe's gentle and meditative improvisations shift and mutate, with spectral melodies drifting in and out of focus like smoke. Their sound on The Lunar Observatory occupies a strange, vertiginous space somewhere up in the clouds, taking in elements of traditional English folk music, experimental improvised jazz and lo-fi noise. I strongly recommend you check this out then have a look at their website and maybe buy some of their music. You could also do worse than check out what's happening over at Foxy Digitalis.
Robbie Basho's album of heavy, exploratory guitar jams is probably available elsewhere on the internet, but I know you just love that ol' snap, crackle and pop!
Tracklist:
01 The Falconer's Arm
02 Tassajara - Zen Shinji
Lost Lagoon Suite
03.1 Walking Into The Forest
03.2 Prelude
03.3 Blue Wolf
03.4 Sky Medicine
03.5 Finale
03.6 Walking Out The Forest
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04 Pavan Hindustan
05 Babs
Here's another incredible album of chimerical, twilight sounds from our chemical friends from Tampere, Finland: Kemialliset Ystävät. This one was released way back in 2001 on the French label, Alice in Wonder records, and this is certainly a record that leaves the listener in a state of wonderment. Difficult and nonsensical on initial listens, perseverence pays dividends as their communal abstractions break out into soundworld of exquisite beauty and bottomless melancholy. Here's a suitably wobbly video for Nykyajan Tanssi:
Gorgeous 6 song e.p. from this strange Finnish group. The music here is a gentle and bewitching blend of low key jazz and Nick Drake-esque spacey folk. The instrumentation is spare and slightly precarious, and always completely engaging, carrying Mika Ratto's melancholic vocal perfectly. Sounds nothing like Circle, with whom the band has shared a couple of members.
I can't really recommend this one enough.
Tracklist:
01. Kovin lentäen kotiin kaipaan 02. Vuosisadan vaihteessa 03. Kynttilät syttyvät varhain 04. Kysymysten sali 05. Aamuyön tunteina 06. Akvaario
Glad to see people are enjoying this one. I'd better take the opportunity to tell you that Kuusumun Profeetta are still very much active, and their website is here.
This is a fantastic slice of folky psychedelia from Turkey. At times its reminiscent of some of the Incredible String Band's quirky stylings, at others its got a hazy, pastoral sound not unlike Popol Vuh. Then there's this:
Hope you enjoy it.
Tracklist:
01 Toroslar
02 Lorke
03 Ilgaz
04 Madımak
05 Iklig
06 Cheminées De Fées
07 Sunset In Golden Horn
08 La Légende Du Mont Ararat
09 Hamsi
10 Fleur Sauvage
11 Cahit's Tune
12 To A Clear Mind
13 Rêve Kaleidoscopique
Today is the first day of 2010 and many of you young whippersnappers will be nursing sore heads, so today I'm posting a suitably booze-soaked album of goodtime hillbilly music. Some of you might know Jeffrey Frederick and the Clamtones from his songs on 'Have Moicy' (which must be one of my desert island discs), though he remains more obscure than his misfit collaborators, The Holy Modal Rounders and Michael Hurley. These musicians have deep roots in the counterculture of the '60s, and it shows, not through extended guitar solos and cosmic sound effects, but rather through the outlaw spirit and the irreverent, anarchic humour that pervades many of these songs.
While The Holy Modal Rounders and Michael Hurley were both part of the East Village folk scene that spawned The Fugs, Jeffrey Frederick was a country boy, originally from Vermont, and later settling in Oregon, where he recruited the Clamtones and recorded this great album. Here's some footage of the band playing an outdoor reunion concert in 1993:
Jeffrey apparently lived a life as colourful as his songs and one of his bandmates has collected a bunch of stories like the one that follows, on the Freakmountain website.
"Another time Jeff had been on a 2 day drunk.He had charmed this chicken into sitting on his shoulder.By Sunday morning the chicken had been sitting there for 8 hours or so --The gang goes to the End of the Trail for Sunday Brunch-- The restaurant is packed with the after church crowd from Carson-- -Vida comes to the table and sez--"Jeff,,, you cant have that chicken in here!!"--So Jeff takes the chicken off his shoulder,sticks it's head in his mouth and bites it off.The headless chicken goes flyin',floppin'and flappin' thru the restaurant,squirtin' blood all over the sunday suits and dresses.Vida was NOT happy.Jeff was kicked out for a few days. He had to sincerely apologize."
Tracklist:
01 Rotten Lettuce
02 Lazy Bones
03 juanita
04 Toilet
05 Stolen Guitar
06 Beer Shits
07 Window
08 Rosebud
09 Oh Me Oh My
10 Singing to the Dentist
11 Let Me Down
Get it HERE, though I would encourage you to buy the completely remastered CD entitled 'Resurrection of Spiders in the Moonlight' from over here.
Groovy psychedelic rock from Turkey that blends traditional instruments and wonderful Anatolian percussion with monstrous fuzz guitars and a '70s prog sensibilty. Erkin Koray was one of the pioneers of rock and roll music in Turkey, first releasing records in the early '60s. By the end of the decade he had adopted a more psychedelic sound. There's plenty of info on the man and his music, and his influence on the Turkish pop scene, over here. Meanwhile, here's some film of his band playing 'Cemalim' from this album:
Tracklist:
01 Karli Daglar 02 Sir 03 Hele Yar 04 Korkulu Rüya 05 Yalnizlar Rihtimi 06 Cemalim 07 Inat 08 Türkü
It's been a while since I posted anything out-of-the-ordinary, left-of-centre or slightly-off-kilter, so this great album fits all those bills. Kemialliset Ysatvat have been quietly ploughing their own unique furrow in Finland since 1995, passing those long winter nights making weird, improvised twilight noise. Their music is often described as freakfolk or psyche-folk, and there is certainly something folky about the sounds they make, complete with flutes and recorders, and all kinds of acoustic stringed instruments, but this is a fractured noise that possibly reflects the fractured nature of the 21st Century European 'folk', or the difficulties inherent in trying to think any kind of 'volkish' collective in the digital age.
However, there's more going on here than midnight woodland yodellings and bellringing as Kemialliset Ystavat (Finnish for 'Chemical Friends') introduce us to rasping animal grunts and squeels, looped and fed through ancient samplers and antique effects pedals. There is something mystical and shamanic, something ecstatic, about this music, but then again it seems shot through with boredom and ennui, and it sounds at times like something you might find sitting on the turntable of a broken down gramophone in a long forgotten attic where dust and cobwebs shimmer in the shafts of sunlight that creep through gaps in the rooftiles. Its a magical sound, but weirdly mundane.
This album collects two very limited cdrs that were released in 2001 and 2002 and throws them onto one lovely slab of vinyl. Its a fascinating album from a fascinating band who are very much alive and kicking, and I urge you to check it out then try and see them live because they really put on a great show.
Tracklist:
All songs are untitled so you just get an mp3 of each side.
Two long, smoked out jams for twilight children. Bells, whistles, a harmonium and a chicken all battle it out in some shed in darkest Wisconsin. Probably great for blood-swapping ceremonies and peyote fueled ritual sex. This chunk of howl and buzz came out as a cdr in 2005 on Time Lag Records, purveyors of all that crooked improv-folktronic-voodoo-drone stuff. Get it HERE.
The music is, of course, for evaluation purposes only. If you like what you hear then go out and try and buy stuff...or something, give money to a down on his luck musician, or sponsor a good busker, it may be the start of something beautiful.
If any of the zips die, then post a comment and i'll try to repost. And leave comments, abuse, name calling, any response is welcome.
I think all of the albums posted are currently unavailable, but if this is not the case we'll remove the offending files.
03 My Favorite Thing
This is a fantastic slice of folky psychedelia from Turkey. At times its reminiscent of some of the Incredible String Band's quirky stylings, at others its got a hazy, pastoral sound not unlike Popol Vuh. Then there's this:
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