This is a split release between two Jagjaguwar Records artists that features all new songs, however it was released by the Spanish label Acuarela Records. Canadian indie fave Julie Doiron offers up some incredibly intimate home recordings that alone are worth the price of admission. She gently strums her acoustic guitar and sings/murmurs five delicate, heartbaring songs. Doiron's companion on this cd is the Austin, TX based band Okkervil River with four songs of their own. Their vocals are of the plaintive, untethered kind that brings to mind Jeff Mangum or John Darnielle. They're backed by some fine rootsy banjo, violin, and guitar. Nice!
MPEG Stream: JULIE DOIRON "The Sweetest Eyes (When You Laugh)" [/audio/doironsweetest.m3u]
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Autumn Sunday mornings just got a little sweeter with this release we have been waiting ages for. We first heard Molly Drake, the mother of the British folksinger Nick Drake, years ago on a compilation of early Nick Drake recordings called Family Tree that featured only a couple of her songs. While that compilation attempted to position her as a key influence on the popular folksinger, we weren't quite convinced back then, but we sure are now. Squirrel Thing, the New York label that brought us the sad and lovely Connie Converse album a few years ago has compiled an amazing collection of 19 original songs that not only confirms Molly Drake's indelible influence on the musical output of her son, but also showcases Molly Drake as an amazing artist and songwriter in her own right. These intimate original songs recorded in the fifties and featuring just her voice and piano are beautifully poignant and moving. Like the work of Connie Converse and Sibylle Baier, they reveal a veiled melancholy in their pure-toned and dryly heartfelt delivery as well as their charmed combination of majestic wistfulness and simple plainsong. One can see clearly now that Molly Drake's seemingly simple but technically complex arrangements, sadly wise and effortlessly delivered as a key compositional influence on the songwriting of her son. Highest recommendation!
Vinyl is packaged in a beautiful die-cut sleeve. Download card included.
In hopefully what will be the last attempt to squeeze blood from the Nick Drake stone, we get this CD of 28 early home recordings that showcase the raw beginning of Drake's brilliant songcraft and the previously unacknowledged influence Drake's family, particularly his mother and sister, had on his musical upbringing. It's a pretty interesting (but not entirely essential) collection of lo-fi recordings some of which were sketches for songs that would appear later on Pink Moon and Five Leaves Left, and there are one or two tracks that were originally released on the Time of No Reply anthology. The highlights include a duet with sister Gabrielle called "All My Trials" that we wish there was more of, and "They're Leaving Me Behind" which sounds like an early version of "Parasite" from Pink Moon with different lyrics. Occasional classical pieces by The Family Trio and a couple of old songs sung by his mother Molly are nice but act as little more than interludes rather than the indelible familial influences the compilers claim them to be. Like the pitfalls that befell the Nick Drake documentary, A Skin Too Few, the slimness of Drake's output and life is stretched so thin in order to supposedly reveal the minutest new insights into a mysterious figure, that we forget that the enigmatic mystery is the reason his work is so compelling in the first place. Revealing every tiny sketch of an artist's process and claiming them important only gives fodder to the backlash campaign that has started ever since "Pink Moon" was featured in a VW ad. Which is unfortunate for an artist who has never had any say or control over his own legacy, save for three brilliant records, which should be plenty enough for anyone.
This all time beloved AQ tresure, out of print for ages, finally gets reissued, in time to give as a gift, to ANYONE you know who might not have this, because everyone should own these records. Some of the most breathtakingly lovely folk music EVER. Now with new artwork, and with the addition of the recent Nick Drake documentary A Skin Too Few. To make room for the dvd, they bumped the odds and sods collection Time Of No Reply, but is not such a loss, as much of that stuff has surfaced in one form or another in the recent spate of collections gathering up anything and everything Drake ever recorded.
But here, in addition ot the movie, you get everything you need, all three classic albums: Pink Moon, Bryter Layter and Five Leaves Left. Breatless, intimate, heartfelt, tragic, lovely, dreamy, wistful, heart breaking, personal, intense and mysterious folk music that sounds as otherworldly as it does timeless.
In a super nice box, with a new 100 page book. Absolutely essential.
Here's an odd posthumous release that very well may only appeal to those hungering for *any* 'new' Nick Drake recordings. If you have Time Of No Reply, some of these songs might seem a little familiar. Many of that album's songs appear here in alternate versions that were either recently 'discovered' or have had one or all of the following applied to them: rerecorded, remixed, remastered. Released thirty years after Drake's passing, Made To Love Magic has a few moments that are indeed a bit sticky. Some artistic decisions were made that obviously Drake had no say in -- for instance, the addition of some very recently recorded orchestral arrangements to a couple of songs. This compilation closes with the one truly previously unreleased track "Tow The Line". For Drake completists only.
As heard on TV... Yes, this record has come to unfortunately be synonymous with television commercials for automobiles, but please don't let that dissuade you from visiting (or revisiting) a truly great album!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Long a treasured 'bootleg' amongst Drake fans, these are 18 rare home recordings that sit comfortably beside his 4 other essential albums. So lovely!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY. [/cat/countryfolkblues11.html]
The first release from The Wormhole, a non tape offshoot of UK label the Tapeworm, comes in the form of this long in the works double 7" from Drcarlsonalbion, aka Dylan Carlson of doomtwang slowcore sludgelords Earth. We first heard from Carlson's alter ego on the now out of print Tapeworm tape Edward Kelley's Blues, which found Carlson beginning to musically explore his fascination with the occult and UK folklore, that record a mix of field recordings (of particularly occultic locations), Carlson's guitar, and some subtle vocals (sung in Enochian at one point) sounding not that far removed from Earth, albeit at their most bleary and softly psychedelic. The sound here finds Carlson creating dark, droning, buzz drenched sprawls of psychedelic guitar buzz, and twang flecked shimmer, and this time is even less removed from modern Earth, the music here a backdrop for spoken word by UK spoken word poet / activist Rosie Knight, the combination is pretty potent, Knight's lyrics mysterious, her voice nicely raspy, her accent thick, it definitely speaks to a sort of witchy seventies acid folk vibe, which we would imagine is precisely what Carlson was hoping to conjure. But for those of you (like some of us here), have issues with 'spoken word', fear not, the second 7" in this double set features instrumental versions of both tracks, and sans spoken word, they are essentially two new Earth cuts!
Not sure how limited this is, but we're guessing VERY. You know what that means...
You know it's not just us recommending stuff to our customers here at aQ, it works the other way too, with our customers recommending stuff to us all the time. An example being one of our very favorite customers, David Katznelson, whom you may know as the mastermind behind several different, quality labels including country/blues/folk vinyl reissue specialists Sutro Park (and also WTF? specialists Birdman). David asked us to order this for him and then after he picked it up, immediately emailed excitedly about how fantastic it is, so we checked it out ourselves and then asked him to write it up for us to share with everybody else! Here's the great guest review Dave came up with:
I will not tell you how much money I have wasted on reissues of private press records from the '70s, bullied into buying them by well written descriptions namedropping other need-to-know ultra obscure artists, saluting their eBay sales price and touting their snot-nosed record collector desirability. It has gotten to a point that when I read, "ONLY 100 made back in 1972" - I figure I know why. To be honest, thank GOD for aQ's curation of the best, as well as big props to YouTube which lets me preview the other potential expensive crap-takes before I make a wrong decision and sacrifice money that could just as well be used at the local pot dispensary.
Thus, the discovery of a killer record from the outsider world is so sweet. Hell, the name of the label behind John Drendall & B.A. Thrower's lp is called OUT-SIDER RECORDS. The name of the game, plain and simple. Their record, "Papa Never Let's Me Sing The Blues" has all the markings of a brilliant mirage: a questionable title, a bizarre cover layout, and a slide guitar player named "Stiff-finger Eddie", but throw the needle down and BINGO, you realize that there is something more here. It starts with the early-'70s Stonesy-vibed "Cold Night In August", and flows into the very pushin' groover "Old Man Gibbs". The whole record is a groove...and to name drop sundry band names to stir the pot: there is definitely some late-late-period Byrds going on here...maybe a taste of Lucifer's blues abandon, the swagger of The Faces, or a smattering of the acoustic-side of Zeppelin. And there are meandering guitars that are the basis from many a great 60s downer (check out "I Feel" for example). The resultant sound for John Drendall & B.A. Thrower is bluesy brownish muffley warm outsider magic...the kind that you hope for!
Limited to 500 copies, 180 gram vinyl, thick sleeves. Includes liner notes by Patrick "Acid Archives" Lundborg.
Gorgeous psychedelic folk from right here in SF, featuring members of aQ faves Citay, which will make sense once you hear this. Lush, eerie, dreamy and haunting, gorgeous vocal harmonies, minimal percussion, equal parts seventies British folk and seventies Laurel Canyon pop, woven into a witchy gothic brew that is totally enchanting.
Strings soar, unfurling melancholy melodies, and guitars jangle, but it's the female vocals that seal the deal, a la Sandy Denny, Jacqui McShee of Pentangle, Bobbie Watson from Comus, Stevie Nicks, you get the idea, bewitching and ethereal, raw and powerful and emotional, and the harmonies, so captivating and otherworldly, wow. The Dry Spells manage to sound so timeless, this record definitely sounds contemporary, but if the lush production was dialed back just a little, this could easily have been some lost seventies psych folk reissue. Absolutely stunning.
Most definitely for fans of Pentangle, Incredible String Band, Comus, as well as modern groups channeling that sound like Citay, Vetiver, Fleet Foxes...
The lp includes a download of the whole record, including a killer bonus track, a cover of Fleetwood Mac's "Rhiannon", which is included on the cd version as well.
Another strange and mysterious collection of lost and forgotten musicks, perhaps the last volume (of four) in this series of archival recordings, collecting the very few existing performances and recordings that fall under the umbrella of a mysterious movement of musicians and composers known as�The Guild Of Funerary Violinists.�
Pierre Dubuisson was France's foremost Funerary Violinist, having made his name in the great funerary duels that became a bit of a fashion for a brief spell, where the deceased would leave a bit of melody to be performed after his death, two violinists would then improvise on the theme doing their best to wring more tragedy from the notes than their opponent, the winner of course was the one who drew the most tears from onlookers. Dubuisson eventually became president of the French branch of the Guild Of Funerary Violinists, and helped to integrate Funerary Violin into the Catholic ritual before disappearing under dubious circumstances during the infamous Funerary purges.�
These recordings were made by Pierre's grandson Jacques, who after running away from an abusive home and an overbearing father, was discovered playing some of his grandfather's pieces at a concert in 1913, by an archivist from the Biblioteque Nationale De France, who convinced Jacques to make wax cylinder recordings of some of his grandfather's recordings. Jacques is of course not the player his father was, or his grandfather before him, but the pieces carry their own powerful emotion which easily overcomes any sort of deficiencies in the performances.�
Oh, right, we always seem to forget the most important part, none of the above is true? Not a bit. Or is it? Hard to say. Or so a few of us think. Some here choose to believe (Mulder?) since the mythology is almost as fascinating and nuanced as the recordings, and imagining this lost art is so much more fun, while others are just happy to listen to this amazing music. And amazing it is. Perfectly and beautifully rendered to sound as old and antique as it most likely is not. Wailing, plaintive funereal laments on solo violin, sad and morose, lilting and so completely lovely, bathed in all manner of grit and hiss, fuzz and antique distortion, sounding like the old wax cylinders these recordings purport to be. Imagine some old timey violin music treated by Tim Hecker, and spun� in some ultra morose DJ set by Philip Jeck...
The music is so evocative, of dark clouds at dusk, rain swept fields, huge brooding stone houses, lush gardens beneath grey skies, and of course, funerals, and the slow stately trudge of the funeral procession to the grave site. We've gushed about pretty much every volume so far, and by now are probably just repeating ourselves, but we just love these discs, read the other Funerary Violinist reviews for more on the music and the mythology, and you'll realize just why it seems impossible to us to not fall totally in love with such a well executed piece of what ultimately amounts to performance art. The music, dark and delicate, creepy and so beautiful, even removed from the mythology is totally amazing, the story and the text is as well (there's even a book you can track down, detailing the entire recorded history of the Guild) but the two together, are simply magical....
***Mississippi Alert! Mississippi Alert! Mississippi Alert! Mississippi Alert!***
Originally released on Smithsonian Folkways in 1969, Ghetto Reality features songwriter and educator Nancy Dupree as she works with a group of inner-city elementary school kids from Rochester, New York. When she was initially met with resistance to participate by the kids, she dropped the state standardized music curriculum and began to write songs that were more relatable to the keenly aware and grown-up lives the young students were living as well as the various contemporary social issues they were facing. Using piano and tambourine in groovy and soulful numbers, the songs take the form of spirituals and rhyming games, but the content is more modernized as they sing songs about James Brown, civil rights, and building their own self-esteem. This method proved highly successful as the more relatable the song, the better the participation by the kids, and the more they participated, the more the kids realized their natural talents for performing, offering a critical lesson in empowerment. This is an amazing record full of charm (especially cute are the kids imitating James Brown's grunts!) and with really great songs. Fans of Langley Schools Music Project, or that proto-hiphop lp on Smithsonian Folkways, Street And Gangland Rhythms, we listed awhile back, will find lots to love here.
We got some olde style banjo storytelling here! It's sparse and earnest. Sort of dark and damaged, maybe even drunken. It's rythmically spastic, melodically sour. The vocals are atonal and a little out of rhythm, but absolutely endearing. A musical saw sweetens things up on "Nymph Du Prairie". This album's totally awesome! Features Al's brother, Andy Duvall (formerly of Zen Guerilla) on percussion.
Quaint old timey twang, warm and intimate from Steve Earle's sister. Not only does she kinda look like Mary from local darlings Virgina Dare, but this album will appeal to fans of V. Dare as well as Freakwater.
Continuing his album-a-year pace, outspoken roots rebel Steve Earle is showing no signs of letting up. On this studio follow-up to 2002's Jerusalem (he also had a live one called Just An American Boy released in 2003), he's sounding his most youthful and invigorated in years. With his steely-eyed focus and weathered, sandpaper-y voice (akin to Americana rock contemporaries Paul Westerberg, Howe Gelb, and younger'un Ryan Adams), Earle has unleashed an equally politically charged companion piece to his aforementioned Jerusalem (his response to the events and aftermath of September 11th). Many music writers have already pointed this out, and we fully concur that the album's lone weak point is "Condi Condi" a tongue in cheek ode to Condoleeza Rice.
It's all been leading up to this. In the early nineties, when most of us heard Earth for the first time, our minds were totally blown. What was that massive slab of fuzzy sludge doing on Sub Pop? Why didn't it sound like Soundgarden or Mudhoney or Tad? It didn't take long before we stopped asking questions like that and began wondering where the hell were all the other bands that sounded like Earth. Well, it took 10 years, but now that whole downtuned slow motion sludge thing is an actual genre. With more and more new bands popping up every day. All honoring the mighty sludge that was Earth. But those of you who were into Earth the first time around, might remember the band changing directions pretty dramatically, adding a drummer, and playing actual songs, even doing a Hendrix cover at one point, the Earth of old having mutated into a groovy sort of stoner post rock, propulsive swinging riffs, relentless chugging guitars, all wrapped in a druggy spacy swirl. Back then we were all a bit bummed out, as Earth became, well, more normal, at least to our ears. It was as close to selling out as Earth were liable to get.
Back to the present day. Recordings started popping up here and there, along with rumors of actual Earth shows, limited 7"s and tour only 12"s, all filling us with an impossible anticipation. Earth was back. But if they were back, why were all the recordings from live shows and all several years old? It made sense, the sound of the new Earth practically picked up right where they left off, stretched out, spaced out, druggy post rock with simple drumming and wavering distorted riffs, not heavy per se, but dark and dreamy and mesmerizing. But none of that could have prepared us for the desolate, sun baked, slow crawl, shuffle and twang beauty of long-awaited new studio album Hex. Definitely hewing closer to Earth's more recent post rockisms, Hex is warm and expansive, slow building and contemplative, with simple drums, heavily reverbed, not distorted, guitars, occasional lapsteel, the whole thing unfurling into a haunting twang, a ghost town desert lullaby, a Cormac McCarthy novel in song, tumbleweeds, miles of scrub and windblown landscapes, old dead trees, plenty of space for the cymbals to sizzle and each riff to drift into black clouded skies. Drone / doom / dirge / sludge purists (if there can be such a thing) may well be a bit disappointed, or at the very least confused. And Earth's history / reputation for black hole heaviness might be an albatross at this point as this new sound falls squarely within the territory of groups like Low, Codeine, Friends Of Dean Martinez, Calexico, Scenic, Torrez, Sixteen Horsepower, even Mazzy Star or Godspeed You Black Emperor. But ultimately none of that has anything to do with the fact that Hex is just simply beautiful. A dark and mysterious and truly haunting record. Huge swells of instrumental tension dissipate into warm washes of drift and shimmer, melodies are slowly uncoiling snakes, waking drowsily and slithering off sun baked rocks, every note and every drum beat, every slippery lapsteel swoop, every stretch of near silence, are all draped lazily over broken fences, fallen power lines, rusted out tractors, fallow fields. Dark clouds drift above, across a steel grey sky, sending small shadowy shapes scurrying across the landscape like mysterious creatures, the breeze is warm and smells of death and desolation. Every one is lost and alone, out of money, out of time, just waiting around to die. The mood is bleak, but the sound of Hex is so so beautiful. Somehow hopeful and full of joy, but the sort of joy that comes from being powerless and close to despair, and simply choosing joy over misery, finding happiness the way animals in the desert seek out moisture. The heart of Hex is heavy, the sound appropriately heavy as well, but in a way few conventionally heavy records can manage. A brooding, storm about to break, dam about to burst, soul about to loose itself from its earthly moorings and escape to a better place kind of heavy. The sound of the desert, and the human spirit, of death, of sadness and horror, of loneliness, of abandonment, of hearts breaking, lovers lost and drifting apart, of life. The sound of laying in the dry dirt, the breeze stretched across you like a moth eaten old blanket, eyes closed, the sun sending all sorts of shapes spinning behind your closed eyelids, memories becoming fuzzy and drifting away, your whole body and soul wrapped in a warm darkness, the world fading into nowhere, you fading into nothing.
Japan's EM Records, our new favorite label for totally unknown reissue surprises -- from singing saw records to electronic brainwave music to New Age psych -- come through YET AGAIN with this fantastic album of guitar music by a long-haired, Viking-looking dude from the '70s named William Eaton! A gentle soul, judging by his gorgeously mellow music on this disc, all instrumental, all improvised, originally self-released on vinyl in 1978 in an edition of just 1000 copies. The simple drawing on the cover, with the rays of the setting sun and puffy clouds in the sky, really gets at what these 18 tracks are all about. Languid, blissed-out acoustic and electric string caresses, music that seems heaven-sent... You can imagine him sitting, cross-legged, eyes closed, with a meditative calm belying the virtuosic skill with which he plays. Rooted in hippy psych folk this is, but with some hints of more difficult, avant-garde new music, for sure like John Fahey, and perhaps like a very very listenable Derek Bailey, or better yet, like FMP-label guitarist and inventor Hans Reichel. And if we say it's just a bit New Agey, don't let that scare you off. We think all fans of the whole wonderful "wooden guitar", John Fahey / Robbie Basho worshipping, neo-Appalachia, modern day "American Primitive", steel string guitar improv scene today -- Jack Rose, James Blackshaw, Ilyas Ahmed, Richard Bishop, Matt Valentine, Sean Smith, etc. -- will really find a lot to like here!!
Another point in common with Hans Reichel, is that the instruments Eaton plays here he built himself. A mystical luthier from the Arizona desert, William Eaton crafted some AMAZING instruments, depicted in the pages of the thick cd booklet. Totally baroque-looking works of art like his 26 string Elesion Harmonium, or his beautifully sculptural harp guitar. And just check out the curves of his double neck Quadrophonic electric... wow.
So, totally recommended. Oh, and this disc is one of the first beneficiaries of EM's new Japanese AND English liner notes policy! Yep, English language liner notes, and lots of 'em... along with the usual full-color photos and album art found in most EM cd booklets.
What the fuck? We shouldn't be the only people baffled by this record; and A Life Without Fear was probably engineered with that confusion in mind. A few years back, Ekkehard Ehlers was the darling of the Max / MSP faction of electronic artists, recontextualizing any number of artists into a delirious pixel-pointed fizz of digitized sound fragments, following in the foot steps of Christian Fennesz and Stefan Mathieu. As great as Ehlers recontextualizations of Cornelius Cardew, John Cassavettes, and Albert Ayler were, this micro-genre of soundsculpting seemed a bit faddish and a slave to technology. Needless to say, Mathieu has shifted his focus to more organic materials and instrumentation, and Ehlers has followed suit by dropping his Max / MSP patches in favor a gritty blues minimalism. With the press release making comparisons to Jim O'Rourke's emulation of John Fahey, Ehlers' recapitulation of turn of the 20th century blues has a studied hollowness about it. While sonically, these rough-hewn guitar chords and back-porch stomps have all of the trappings of any old archival recording (i.e. scratchy sound, tinny production, etc), they nevertheless lack any real soul (unlike O'Rourke's jubliant finger-picking and carnavelesque arrangements on Bad Timing.) There's also an ill-conceived bout of West-African / Congolese thumb-piano playing to futher complicate the matters at hand. The avant-garde meets the assimilatory attributes of imperialism? A curious application of 'authentic' patinas? A miscalculated attempt of cross-cultural communication? How about a faux-Jandek outsider thing? Who knows? Again we return to the ultimate question about this record: what the fuck?
You suckers without turntables get yet another temporary reprieve, as Ekkehard Ehlers' five lovely mini-albums, previously released only on vinyl, are here compiled onto one handy cd. And lovely is most certainly an understatement. This is some of the most gorgeous, sublime and moving electronic/glitch/sample based music we have ever heard. Sounds are completely recontextualised into cloudy, indistinct but somehow emotionally and sonically spot-on homages to some of Ehlers' influences. Falling somewhere between Stephen Mathieu and Oval, Ehlers adds remarkable depth and emotion to what is quite often a cold and clinical artform.
Tracks one and two are the "Plays Cornelius Cardew" lp and are lovely layered soundscapes as only Ehlers can conjure. Sampled sounds are seamlessly woven into dense, textural tone poems again highly reminiscent of Wolfgang Voigt's Gas. The second (track three and four) in the "Plays" series is a 'tribute' to the German beat poet Hubert Fichte. Where those previous tracks are dominated by ephemeral drone work with refined patinas of digital corrosion, this piece curiously sounds like Pole doing free jazz, with erratic squiggles of granular synthesized saxophone and really lazy strums from a guitar seeping up from an electronically sculpted metallic haze. Even those slowly developed basslines that Pole plops into his neo-dub show up in "Plays Hubert Fichte" although Ehlers disregards Pole's structuralism in favor of an amorphous improvisation of deep hovering movements. "Plays John Cassavetes" (tracks five and six) is part three in Ehler's series of 'tributes' and for these pieces he seamlessly weaves orchestral samples into beautiful landscapes of sonic reverberations. Very reminiscent of Wolfgang Voigt's work as Gas, or those brief, subtle moments of bliss found on My Bloody Valentine's "Loveless" record. Tracks seven and eight find Ehlers sampling fragments of Albert Ayler. However, as with most of these pieces, it is debatable as to how much Ayler is actually present on this recording, musically. Consisting entirely of digitally altered cello recordings, these two sidelong pieces gently swell, teeter and expand, forming beautiful, haunting drones that lie beneath digital snippets of arrhythmic ephemera. Somehow, Ehlers manages to restructure a mundane cello recording into a wonderfully reticular songpoem. The final two tracks are from the 'Plays Robert Johnson' 7" which we were never able to get enough of to list. Two short tracks: the first is an abstractly plucked, slow-motion, Reynols-on-cough-syrup style tarpit blues jam, while the final track is all throbbing four-on-the-floor Kompakt style minimal/heroin house.
Trust us, we plow through a lot of pretentious electronic crap that takes itself too seriously -- and while the conceit of the five Ehler tributes might suggest that he could fall into this trap -- he does not. Ehlers delivers, and you'll love this. We all do.
We didn't know a whole lot about El-G, aka French pop weirdo Laurent Gerard, other than he was supposed to be sort of like a twisted modern day Serge Gainsbourg, and hearing this now, that's really not that far off the mark, he even has a female foil to further cement the Gainsbourg comparison. Mix in some Animal Collective weirdness, some Kemialliset foresty folk, and you'd be getting close.
French ballady folk is definitely the core of Gerard's sound, but the tracks here vary wildly, compiled as they are from a handful of super limited previous releases. But a quick sampling reveals laid back French pop, breezy and dreamy, brushed snares, subtle electronics drifting over finger picked guitars, fractured blues drenched in wheezing organ and random percussion, peppered with deep bassy throbs and grunted garbled vocals, Abstract fractured folk, soft female vocals over shimmery organs, rubbery basslines and howled male background vox, the final track of the A side builds from a folky whisper to a soaring layered drone, all buzzing tones and warbly organ, strangled guitar leads and lurching low end melodies. The rest of the record hovers close-ish to French folk and pop, but tweaks them just enough to keep it interesting, at one point converting the main riff from the Smiths' "How Soon Is Now" into a backdrop for some ethereal crooning. Cool stuff. Definitely recommended for fans of any of the above mentioned bands, as well as the softer side of freak folk and the weirder side of French pop.
These two Swedish conceptual / sound artists are quite amused by their actions which have warranted 58 minutes of their laughter, which runs through a litany of guffaws, giggles, evil cackles, hoots, and hollers. In the end it's certainly absurd in scope and strangely enjoyable in a delirious kind of way. As baffling as it may seem, Mr. Elggren decided to release this conceptual fuck-you as one of his Firework Editions. Strangely enough, I believe we only have one of these in stock at the moment...
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Originally released in 1970, this album of influential folkster Ramblin' Jack Elliott features mostly covers of well known tunes such as: Me & Bobby McGee, Folsom Prison Blues, I'll Be Your Baby Tonight, Don't Let Your Deal Go Down, Lay Lady Lay, With God On
1968 release by Mr Elliott, now available on cd. Elliott performs If I Were A Carpenter, Tennessee Stud, Rock Island Line, and more.
All-acoustic, gloomy folk music from this German "black metal" band, who have abandoned the raspy vocals and distorted electric buzzsaw guitars of their previous releases (we're guessing, haven't heard 'em) for mournful string strum and doleful chant. Allan thinks this is beautiful, Andee considers it 'renaissance faire metal' without the metal. For fans of "Kveldsjanger", the acoustic masterpiece by Norwegian black metal eccentrics Ulver (I'm guessing that Empyrium are). And, c'mon, how can you resist a song (and album) title like "Where At Night The Wood Grouse Plays"??
Here's the second album for No Quarter from Brooklyn's Endless Boogie, and boy howdy do they live up to their name, there's a couple songs here upwards of eight minutes long, also tracks that clock in at 9:36, 10:49, and even 22:36! That one, entitled "A Life Worth Leaving", is the album's finale, recorded live on cassette for maximum sweat and grit and grunt. Though the whole album isn't much different. With extreme repetitive blues rock grooves, Beefheartian holler, and loads of wild electric geetar wail, it's hypnotic shitkickin' psychedelia like Wooden Shjips and ZZ Top and Circle and the Rolling Stones all jammin' together for ever and ever.
If you liked EB's previous album Focus Level, you'll like Full House Head too. And like we said about that record, the one thing that sometimes doesn't work for us is the vocals, they're a bit too "authentic" to really be authentic, if you know what we mean. But we could be wrong, maybe the singer (whom we assume is also playing guitar or something) really is a grizzled old white blues hippie dude with a long beard, wearing a floppy leather hat, and spitting tobacco juice out the side of his mouth when not pouring the whiskey in. 'Cause that's what he sounds like, or sounds like he's trying to sound like. But anyway he certainly shuts up and plays his guitar plenty so we're not really complaining. And actually, when he is on the mic, we like him at his most gruff, psychotic and strangled, like the ranting of "Top Dollar Speaks His Mind", not so much the more intelligible singing/speaking of "Slow Creep", which is one of the album's mellower moments, if you can call a nearly 11 minute long track a moment.
But mellow this mostly isn't. Mesmeric, though, yes. At their best, Endless Boogie's psychedelic choogle gets positively savage, and we start thinking, it's like Blue Cheer's Randy Holden crankin' it out backed by the Plastic Ono Band rhythm section, or something equally fantastical. Not sure if it really sounds like that, but that we'd even think it for a second is a good thing. So, yeah, while we once had our doubts about this band, again we've been convinced. The real deal, or what passes for in this day and age. Go unto it and get into it, brothers and sisters! Unless the name Endless Boogie totally turns you off. In which case, 'tis truth in advertising, thus this ain't for you.
Another disc we knew nothing about and just luckily stumbled across (with our interest whetted due to its label affiliation, Kning usually being quite interest-ing). We were initially struck by the gorgeous cover, an embroidered landscape, all oranges and blacks, the texture of the background fabric adding grit to the already dark and mysterious shapes and hues in the foreground. The words Farval Falkenberg printed in huge gold metallic letters, strangely poetic song titles.
We later discovered that this is in fact the soundtrack to a Swedish film, a coming of age story, sad and bittersweet, and the music couldn't be more perfect. The opening track had us completely smitten within seconds. A gorgeously melancholy acoustic guitar, spinning a soft sad melody, mournful and moody, the main melody is whistled, giving the track a certain childlike vibe, a bit of a Morricone / Bjorn Olsson feel too, it seriously gives us shivers just writing about it. Then the 'chorus' kicks in, and adds soft focus piano plinking in the background, another guitar higher up in the mix, simple tambourine percussion. It's so evocative, you can't help but let your mind start making up different scenes from this movie you've never seen. Lonely walks, sitting by the window, rain pouring down, wandering along railroad tracks, laying in bed staring at the cracks in the ceiling. Wow.
And the rest of the record is just as compelling. Every song a mini super emotional epic. Organs wheeze ominously, acoustic guitars flutter and flit, chimes drift and shimmer, the piano returns in dense swells, bits of static and glitchy hiss intrude like someone changing stations on the radio, there are creaks and groans, distant rumbles, bits of electronic skitter, subtle drones, chimes, bells, even the occasional vocals, but it's always about the guitar, it's delicate dreamlike melodies, and how it's so perfectly intertwined with the piano and the organ. So moving and intense. Think Rachel's, Dirty Three, Pinetop Seven, Japancakes, Godspeed, but somehow much less arty, and more genuine, subtly experimental, but practically perfect, dark, emotional, so incredibly moving. Makes us want to see the film so bad, but in the meantime, it's the ideal music for whatever film you have running through your head. And of course the absolutely perfect soundtrack for lonely walks, staring at the ceiling, staring out the windows in the rain, wandering along railroad tracks, etc...
Entrance is the solo project of 21 year old Guy Blakeslee, who has also played bass for Baltimore's Convocation Of... Though this stuff is not much like that band's proggy post-punk, that's presumably why he landed on the same record label as that band. Also maybe 'cause he's performed with Will Oldham and Cat Power, and done a split 7" with Papa M... Anyway, Entrance could be better compared to Guy's friend and touring partner, the wonderful Devendra Banhart (you've all got his album, we know!). Playing solo with just an acoustic guitar and his voice, and maybe a tambourine or somesuch, Guy sounds a bit like Syd Barrett and looks a bit like Marc Bolan. As he proved here not long ago when he played an instore with Devendra, Guy can project his music quite well with no help from amplifiers or microphones! This disc is much in the same spirit as that instore. Rambling lovely string tangle, dramatic late-night laments, violent strumming, and vocal outpourings building on the folk-rock vibes of mystic fellows of decades past. The disc features mostly originals (apparently never played the same way twice, thanks to Entrance's loose, in-the-moment aesthetic and reliance on enthusiasm rather than training technique-wise) but also some suitable covers by blues/folk forebears Skip James ("I'm So Glad") and Bob Dylan ("Tommy Thumb's Summertime Blues"). Basically, Entrance is somewhere between the eccentric folk troubadour vibe of pal Devendra Banhart and the more aggro attitude of the White Stripes' damaged, stomping garage rock n' roll... if you can imagine them in the person of one fuzzy haired guy with an acoustic guitar, which is a stretch. At any rate both are historically minded and inspired, if you know what I mean, making for some timeless music that's immediately understandable.
It's been a long road for Guy Blakeslee, since his early days as bassist for Baltimore post-punks the Convocation Of..., to the acoustic psych blues of Entrance. The last few years have seen that solo endeavor electrified into the Entrance Band with the addition of bassist Paz Lenchantin (whose recent Songs For Luci lp we reviewed a few lists back) and drummer Derek W. James, and here the trio dish up a solidly rocking collection of songs that very capably venture into more polished territory without losing any of their primal rock energy.
The end result emphasizes the band's impressive instrumentation - make no mistake, Blakeslee can shred, and the rhythm section ain't no slouches either - within a more modern indie approach while still managing to bring to mind some good ol' classic rock. It took a few listens for this to click with us, but once it did, we were sold. Those of us at AQ who have been bigtime Entrance fans from the beginning definitely noticed a much different production, aesthetic and straight ahead rock vibe to this new Entrance outing. In fact, when thinking of "modern rock", you may find yourself questioning why it isn't THIS you're hearing on the radio. The Entrance Band are a modern day power trio, bluesy and psychedelic as hell, with all kinds of snaky guitar licks, thunderous bass, and awesomely grooving drums, with Blakeslee's clear but powerful vocals cutting right through. One certainly gets the impression that they must tear shit UP live. A nice surprise, this one.
The fifth collection of songs from this amazing songwriter. In recent years, his music has been labelled Americana, roots rock, alt-country, but call it what you will -- this is simply a wonderfully earthy and lush album. A long long way from his punk rock
This new 37 minute release from psychedelic Philly folksters Espers isn't exactly their eagerly-awaited second album proper (which remains tantalizingly on the horizon). Instead, with The Weed Tree they offer up a sort of "teaser" disc that consists almost entirely of cover songs, with the only Espers original being the the grand and morose "Dead King" that closes the album. The covers include a couple of traditional tunes ("Rosemary Tree" and "Black Is The Color") alongside an eclectic but in the end utterly appropriate mix of material from the likes of the Durutti Column, Nico, Michael Hurley, and even Blue Oyster Cult. Although that might seem like a diverse bunch, in the hands of Espers these songs all do seem to belong together in one natural organism, the roots and branches and leaves of this Weed Tree. Echoing '70s artists like the Incredible String Band, Linda Perhacs and Vashti Bunyan, Espers' music (or here, their take on other people's music) is delicate and dreamy, sad but lovely acoustic folk with a lurking psych presence coming from the humming organ drones and acid guitar flashes... and these songs all lean heavily upon the band's sweet female vocals and harmonies.
Their folky, vaguely madrigal-like take on BOC's "Flaming Telepaths" builds into a freaked-out (but far from hard rock) climax, sounding the most of anything here like something from Espers member Greg Weeks' Awake Like Sleep album (beloved here at AQ). As are Espers themselves! Really nice. If you haven't heard Espers before, but like the other current acid-folk stuff happening such as Josephine Foster and Six Organs and Vetiver and P.G. Six and so forth, this would be a fine place to start! And of course fans will be pleased, as this helps tide us over until the true full-length follow up to their debut appears.
Sleepy John Estes was the son of a sharecropper and grew up in Tennessee, later finding musical work in Memphis' fertile blues scene. Blind in one eye from a childhood rock throwing incident (ouch) and known for his somewhat withdrawn demeanor (hence, "Sleepy"), his biggest claim to fame is his powerful, highly emotive vocal delivery and his lyrics. Indeed, Estes voice is loud and clear, capable of hitting notes many singers couldn't get to if their lives depended on it. These songs were recorded mostly in Memphis, but there are also sessions from Chicago and New York, and they span from 1929 to 1937. Many of Estes' songs were later covered by other artists, including Led Zeppelin and the Kinks, and he remained an active musician until his death in 1977. Estes is also known for his somewhat limited skill on the guitar, but rather than merely making do with this, he wisely surrounded himself with more talented musicians, most notably James "Yank" Rachell on mandolin and Hammie Nixon on harmonica, resulting in a full sound where his vocals could truly stand out. Throughout the course of these recordings, Estes' voice remains eerily clear and strong, but never forceful. Another welcome release courtesy of the always reliable Monk label.
Quite the intriguing reissue here. It's a San Francisco '60s artifact that could be just as easily be something brand-new from one of the underground acid-folk artists beloved by all you Ptolemaic Terrascope/Broken Face readers, like Six Organs of Admittance or Jack Rose. Anyone who likes them will want this! Likewise if you're into Fahey and Basho and other Takoma label string-pickers. Gene Estribou and Jean-Paul Pickens each took a side to themselves of the original LP release to ramble down some dusty old roads that lead them to acoustic Delta Blues, Indian raga, and Appalachian country-folk. Both these guys sure are fleet of finger, Estribou playing acoustic guitar and Pickens (is that his real name?) doing his thing on the banjo. Imagine David Rawlings (of Gillian Welch fame) hopped up on moonshine and just ripping... Wow. Intensifications indeed. Another excellent Locust release (they just keep 'em coming!) but we've gotta give them a packaging demerit 'cause of the one-sheet insert they opted for instead of a proper cd booklet. Otherwise, great.
We first heard from Eyes Like Saucers back in 2007, when we reviewed the record Still Living In The Desert, which found ELS, aka Jeff Knoch, fomerly of hypnotic psych folkers Urdog, abandon his band, and his friends, ditch all the usual rock band instrumentation, and head off for places unknown, with nothing but a VW van, a handful of acoustic instruments, most importantly, an Indian harmonium, and his faithful canine sidekick. That record, was a fantastic bit of hypnotic dronemusic, a wheezing, druggy droniness, whirring and shimmery and meditative, steeped in the traditions of Indian ragas and modern minimalist drone music more than the psychedelic sounds of his former outfit.
Parmalee is the follow up, and is dedicated to his canine companion, as the subtitle suggests: "Tribute To A Dog". Hopefully this is just an expression of love for his dog, and they are still wandering the wilds together. Our first assumption was that perhaps Parmalee had died, and this was a musical eulogy, the sounds are definitely dark and moody and contemplative enough to be some sort of sad send off, but either way, these are some fantastic psychedelic space drone ragas, all wheezing organs, warm whirling chords, the sound thick and lush, but definitely ragged around the edges, urgent and intimate, captivating and totally mesmerizing. It's impossible to not fall immediately under their spell. Once again, we're reminded of nineties NZ dronerockers Wreck Small Speakers On Expensive Stereos, but this is much more ritualistic, much more home spun drone folk. The rest of the record introduces strange percussion, electronic synths, chimes and bells, slipping from alien folk ritual, to spare almost Appalachian sounding strum, to sea shanty like ballad, all culminating in the gorgeous woozy three part 23 minute epic Warrigal, a lush harmonium workout, the chords and notes wheezing lazily, all sun dappled and drone drenched, the sounds so organic and hypnotic, laced with bits of percussion and tinkling chimes, so haunting and hazy, meditative and dreamy.
If there was ever an argument for Christmas albums that you could play all year, John Fahey's two Christmas records of solo guitar music would be at the top of our lists. Recorded in 1968 and 1975 respectively and included here on one cd, Fahey covers a lot of traditional territory in such a way that makes classic Christmas songs altogether fresh and new. Quiet, understated and peaceful, Fahey's song selection is far reaching past the usual carols we're familiar with and into more obscure Episcopal hymns from his childhood, and even a few songs of his own invention, including the incredible 12 minute improvisation, "Christmas Fantasy (Part II)". So Beautiful!
All right now. After a few unfortunate issues at the pressing plant (discovered, of course, after these beautiful, highly elaborate gatefold double lps were already on the market), we finally have the mind boggling 2009 edition of John Fahey's America. And man was it worth the wait. Originally released in 1971 as a single lp with only four songs, America wasn't heard as it was intended until 1998 when Takoma issued a cd version with all the tracks (NINE extra songs!), and even then, a few minutes had to be shaved off the song Mark 1:15 because of cd time constraints. But now we have it on vinyl, and let it be said, 4 Men With Beards have really outdone themselves with this one, offering an appropriate package (limited to a scant 3000 hand numbered copies, by the way) for Fahey at his most epic!
America definitely ranks among Fahey's most thematic albums, which is saying a lot. Even with covers of songs by Skip James and the McGee Brothers, (not to mention an amazing interpretation of the third movement from Dvorak's Symphony #8), this album presents a powerful and unique vision that is pure John Fahey, and in doing so, he takes things further than usual with a couple of massive tracks stretching into the double digits. Some real mind blowers, for sure, and you'll probably be left wondering how anyone could maintain such an amazing and disciplined command of a steel string guitar. But hey, it's John Fahey after all, and chances are you've been waiting for this one for quite some time.
Newly and nicely reissued on vinyl!! The debut John Fahey record, Blind Joe Death from 1964, with its beautifully minimal and mysterious original cover, is such a perfect record in so many ways. Everything we have ever praised Fahey for musically is present at the start (okay, maybe not his experiments with found recordings and tape manipulations, but everything else!). This is the true beginning of the Guitar Soli genre, with Fahey using open-tuned solo guitar improvisation to mine classical, folk, blues, pre-war popular and gospel idioms in a metaphysical hybrid of esoteric sound and spirit. Songs like "Transcendental Waterfall" and "In Christ There is No East and West" are deliriously mystical and beguiling, paving the long road of musical influence that still continues to inspire to this day. Fahey made many amazing records, but no collection is truly complete without this one.
Highest recommendation!
Another welcome reissue from fingerpickin' folk guitarist John Fahey, who died earlier this year. We miss him, especially in light of the more current experimental guitarwork he was exhibiting. This album, however, was recorded in 1967 and contains his mostly traditional take on folk themes and even pseudo-"ragas". Ten seconds of listening to this and you'll recognize Fahey's signature
"John Fahey and many of his contemporaries and fans consider this disc to be his finest work. It contains both the 1963 and 1967 versions of Death Chants, Breakdowns, and Military Waltzes. The striking differences between the two point up the dramatic stylistic approaches Fahey was exploring during those few short years." (from the liner notes on the album). This is some of the loveliest solo guitar work and folksy fingerpicking that we've ever heard Fahey or anyone else do! Essential!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Five fantastic solo guitar performances recorded live from a show in Atlanta in 1997. Powerful yet beautiful pseudo-improv Fahey-style avant-twang. The last few years have seen the coming of many imitators; recordings like this put them back in their place.
