Folk /
Arbete Och Fritid
Much needed reissue of this long-lived Swedish band's fourth album, from 1973, with an excellent 20' bonus track from 1974 tagged on. Terry Riley's 1967 visit to Sweden and his work with these musicians when they were still just young ones in High School resonates here, and you get a weird and vibrant mixture of Riley, the Third Ear Band, bits of free improvisation and ancient Swedish folk music all blended into an excellent, droney whole.
Taradiddle
RECENT. A new journey down similar terrain, searching out something new in a landscape that's been visited before. Take TUMA's capable hands & add the fantastic percussive talents of WEIS (ZELIENOPLE) & it's like the wheel reinvented. These two play off one another beautifully, w/ Weis creating layers of havoc beneath Tuma's pastoral missives. Weis is the perfect foil for Tuma's brittle sound world. Archaic drones spit bombastic blasts of fire while the resulting sparks flicker into a million di…
Teeth Mountain
Driven primarily by neo-tribal drums, which would seemingly put them in league with the rumbling sound of Bmore's Thank You. But "12 Plus Harsh Tanz" in particular is much more reflective. The guitar brings to mind the cracked post-1960s dream-psyche hangover of Pink Floyd, I'm thinking here of an instrumental interlude that might have been on Obscured by Clouds, or perhaps the contemporaneous Eastern-infused lines of Popul Vuh's Daniel Fichelscher. It's headspace music, to be sure, but in some …
The Jonah
A cornucopia of sonic delights, traversing the spectrum from delicate folk to sprawling progressive rock. Richard Youngs' progressive rock project Ilk provided the impetus for the band to make a "Prog Album" so they started with the everything-but-the-kitchen-sink opus "The Jonah". Running the gamut from delicate acoustic guitar to Sunn 0))) style doom metal & back again, it's an extraordinary feat of the imagination. Around this central track, a range of shorter tracks orbit, typically acoustic…
Long Lost Tapes 1970
Hi quality, previously unreleased recordings from 1970 from the great raga-guitarist, Peter Walker (whose 2 essential Vanguard albums remain criminally unavailable). Peter's group includes: Maruga Booker (trap and frame drums, bells), Perry Robinson (clarinet), Badal Roy (tablas), Rishi (bass), Mark Whitecage (flute and alto sax). "One cold late fall weekend I put a session together. I found housing for the out of town musicians and invited my friend Maruga Booker who came all the way from Detro…
Ancestral Swamp
Ancestral Swamp is the 20th full-length album by legendary rambler, cartoonist, outsider folk singer, and guitarist Michael Hurley. It arrives just in the nick of time for the rabid Snockophile. A batch of new vittles and encores of some of his classic tunes, Ancestral Swamp bubbles with laid-back ease and tremolodic goodness. Most songs have the simplest of arrangements: Hurley singing solo, accompanied by his guitar, Wurlizter organ, or fiddle. Tara Jane O Neil helps lend a nice touch to El Do…
House Of Sticks
2009, House of Sticks is the third release by the Indie folk duo Arborea. Following closely on the heels of their 2008 critically acclaimed self-titled record, it is a verdant, personal collection of singles, drawing the best tracks from their highly praised debut cd Wayfaring Summer and several new songs recorded between 2007 and 2008. Arborea also offers up new versions of their songs Dance, Sing, Fight and Beirut. House of sticks is a continuation of the musical journey of Shanti and Buck Cur…
Songs From The Red House
Limited 250 copies. Skilled in the black-art of ecstatic improvisation, Alex Neilson and Lavinia Blackwall continue their journey into verdant fields of free-psych-drone and traditional UK folk.
The High High Nest
Stephanie Hladowski recorded the four ballads on The High High Nest while a member of the Glaswegian ecstatic jazz and folk collective Scatter. Listening to her lean, vulnerable voice, alone or with sparse instrumental accompaniment of drones and shimmers, is a directly affecting experience ... the communicative power of the human voice remains a current truth - delicate power in Hladowski's case, but nonetheless real.
Sprigs Of Time: 78s From The EMI Archive
2LP version, in deluxe gatefold sleeve with 2 booklets of photos and notes. This is the third in Honest Jon's series of albums exploring the earliest 78s held in the EMI Hayes Archive. Honest Jon's has spent the last two years delving through more than 150,000 78 records in the temperature-controlled steel vaults of EMI's Archive in Hayes, Middlesex. Following studious compilations of West African and Iraqi music of the 1920s, the latest release in the Honest Jon's Hayes Archive series is a spar…
Radio Thailand: Transmissions From The Tropical Kingdom
2006 release, repressed! This 2CD set is an exhaustive collection of Thai Radio transmissions recorded over a 15-year period from 1989 to 2004. These 23 collage tracks have been assembled and distilled from dozens of cassette and mini-disc recordings captured on location from the capital of Bangkok to Chaing Mai and Isan Province in the north to Hat Yai in the south. The music presented here is relentlessly mystifying and seductive: Molam, Luk Thung, Kantrum, folk and pop, classic Thai guitar ro…
Radio Sumatra: The Indonesian FM Experience
The music and production encountered here represents a cross-section of Sumatran FM radio and to a greater extent, what's happening now in Indonesian culture. From the signature sounds of Sumatra (Melayu, Minang Pop, the Batak ballad) to the widespread Indonesian phenomenon of Dangdut, this exclusive 'FM only' Radio Collage will leave your skull shattered, wondering why it's taken so long to be turned-on to the modern pulse of the world's fourth largest country. Some of these selections come fro…
Radio Palestine: Sounds Of The Eastern Mediterranean
From the traditional Nubian sounds of Southern Egypt to the cultured Arabic pop of Beirut, its all here in super-sonic collage: Cairo Orchestral/Greek Sartaki/Palestinian Folk/ Jewish and Euro-hybrid music styles/ Jordanian reverb guitar....all placed deep within the mirage of an 18 year-old time capsule of news, commercials, radio plays, UFO signals, Secret agent messages and chainsaw shortwave. Recorded in the summer of 1985 from Aswan to Jerusalem, this is a cerebral-smashing 65-minute listen…
Wedlock
Wedlock captures Sunburned in its 2003 suit when they took it to the West Coast to tour their way up to Wasilla, Alaska to attend and perform at Paul & Val's wedding on the longest day of the year, June 21, 2003. Under the bright midnight sun, Sunburned recorded this document, a testament to irony, omnipotence, moisture, pain, and the weight. Come and dine at this one, clear table. Double LP. September 2005 release taken from recordings in Alaska on the Summer Solstice. Features a beautifully de…
For Octavio Paz
CD reissue of sold-out limited edition vinyl. Since the release of Six Organs of Admittance's self-titled debut in 1998, Ben Chasny has played pure guitar within individual songs, but For Octavio Paz is his first full record to explore the guitar inside and out, solo and over-dubbed, steel and nylon string (in fact, For Octavio Paz is the first Six Organs album to feature the reverberations of a nylon string guitar). What really sets Chasny apart from the other modern Fahey worshippers is that C…
Dust & Chimes
A limited edition reissue of Dust & Chimes by Six Organs of Admittance, Ben Chasny's second amazing, underground folk-psych project from behind California's Redwood curtain. Heavy, acoustic guitar and mumbled vocalizations merge with out-there jamming in a style that has been compared to guys with LPs on Takoma, though Dust & Chimes is actually closer than anyone else is ever going to come to pantsing the first two Tyrannosaurus Rex albums. The sun is tanging, people.
Satwa
The first ever reissue of the first private press LP from Brazil. Recorded and released in 1973 by the duo of Lula Cortes & Lailson. A real lost masterpiece from any angel, and the first release of the fertile Recife psych scene of the early 70's... mesmerizingly beautiful sitar & 12 string psych ragas beaming strait for your third eye, and lifted ever higher by occasional angelic vocals or a burst of fuzz guitar... truly amazing stuff sure to turn the ears of any folk/psych fan, past or present…
Two Originals Of...
Debut solo CD from Jack Rose, combining his much-lauded Eclipse LP's Red Horse, White Mule and Opium Musick. While Red Horse, White Mule is generally recognized as in the Takoma-inspired tradition, Jack adds his own exotic influences and recognizable touch - whether abstracting on the modal epic "Red Horse" or the rough slide stylings of "The Colonel's Blues." Opium Musick is an eclectic collection with pieces for 12 string (the percussive and dark "Black Pearls), 6 string, and lap guitar. The t…
Raag Manifestos
Compiled from a variety of sources, Raag Manifestos cuts across various acoustic styles much like Rose's Opium Musick LP, but with a more aggressive attack. 'Black Pearls from the River' and 'Hart Crane's Old Boyfriends' are dense, serious assaults on the 12-string, with the intensity of the latter enhanced by Ian Nagoski's roaring electronic backdrop. With subtle tabla accompaniment by Eric Carbonara, 'Crossing The Great Waters,' is another epic modal journey in the style of Pelt's 'Road To Cat…
Music, Martinis And Misanthropy
Music, Martinis and Misanthropy is a mellow, apocalyptic folk and spoken word album that combines acoustic and electronic instrumentation with brutal, Social Darwinist lyrics and poetry. It was created by pioneer noise artist Boyd Rice and an assortment of dark folk all stars. Bob Ferbrache is the recording engineer. It was recorded in Tokyo, Japan and Denver, Colorado between July, 1989 and March, 1990 for NER/Tesco. This album is considered a classic, yet defies easy categorization. The music …