Psychedelia & Kraut / Acid Folk

The 5000 Spirits or the Layers of the Onion was the second LP by The Incredible String Band, released in July 1967. Since recording their debut album the previous year, the original trio had been reduced to two, Mike Heron and Robin Williamson. They recorded The 5000 Spirits... in London in early 1967. The album also featured Pentangle's Danny Thompson on double bass, Williamson's girlfriend Licorice McKechnie on vocals and percussion, master sitar player Nazir Jairazbhoy (credited as "Soma"), a…

AndOarAgain provides unparalleled access to what David Fricke calls “the most harrowing and compelling artifacts of rock & roll’s most euphoric era” across three dozen unheard tracks! In addition to the quintessential original album, AndOarAgain features nearly two hours of unheard music on the way to Oar–along with roads not taken–that both clarifies and muddies the enigma of how psychedelic legend Alexander “Skip” Spence determined the final state of his iconic masterpiece. The time: December,…

180gm vinyl LP. Three albums by Randy Burns were originally released on the ESP-Disk label during the late sixties. The first of which called Of Love and War came out in 1966 and was somewhat your typical mid-sixties solo folk debut album, straight out of the Greenwich Village scene. It contained a few self-composed tunes but mostly 'borrowed' songs from fellow folksters. Accompanied only by his acoustic guitar and occasional 12-string backing, Randy laid down a set that inspired his own writing…

The rarity and bizarre content of Jerry Solomon’s releases have music connoisseurs clamoring for them, though he funded, wrote, recorded, and self-distributed his uniquely fascinating music for no reason other than to simply put it out there. Equal parts strange, entertaining, and foreboding, Jerry’s music is always engaging, and one can’t help but feel these recordings offer a glimpse through a murky portal into the unadulterated creative experience. Approximately fifty years after their initia…

Of all the musicians who attempted to marry modern jazz/rock ideas with traditional British folk in the late '60s/early '70s, John Martyn was the most challenging and aggressive. He had others giving him a run for his money, sure -- Richard Thompson attacked the guitar with Sufi focus and clarity; Bert Jansch often employed a sharp, metallic edge in his work; and John Renbourn was capable of guitar maelstroms -- but when it came down to it, no one was as out-there as Martyn, as experiment…

Though his earlier albums had merit, John Martyn truly came into his own with 1971’s Bless the Weather. The bittersweet grace of “Go Easy,” “Back Down the River,” and “Head and Heart” showcase Martyn’s agile folk-blues guitar touch as well as his delicate vocal shadings and sparse lyric style. A brooding Celtic atmosphere hangs over these tracks, reflected in the mellow fatalism of the title tune and the regretful yet accepting outlook of “Let the Good Things Come.” Whatever the feelings express…

LP version. Tip-on gatefold sleeve; Includes liner notes; Edition of 500. Craig Smith was an extraordinarily gifted songwriter and musician who seemed poised for a successful career in the 1960s music business until his life was derailed by drugs and schizophrenia. In 1969 clean-cut, charismatic Craig Smith became Maitreya Kali, a dark, disturbed psychedelic Messiah figure with a black widow spider tattooed on his third eye. He laid out his strange vision on a self-released double-album Apache/I…

We begin by saying that this is an album unlike any other. A bold statement, perhaps. Yet look in the Scented Gardens of the Mind book and you will see this description: "a revelation of a folk album, with songs of incredible beauty and innovative arrangements. It features traditional instruments you've hardly ever heard before and touches of the avant-garde. Play this album directly after that of another randomly chosen female folk album, and you will notice the difference! This is one of the b…

LP version. Sommor presents the first ever legitimate reissue of Oberon's A Midsummer's Night Dream, one of the rarest psych-folk albums from the UK, originally released in 1971 in a private edition of 99 copies. Oberon consisted of seven young musicians who met while studying at Radley College in Oxford. Drawing upon such influences as Fairport Convention, The Pentangle, King Crimson, The Incredible String Band, and Sandy Denny, the group created a stunning piece of progressive folk. Fanta…

Double LP version. The genesis of Havenstreet goes back to 1969, when Phil Ridgway and Jeff Vinter played in The Gas, an experimental psychedelic band heavily influenced by Barrett-era Pink Floyd. The two friends started to write songs their own songs, ending up as a folk duo. With the offer to record some of their material at a friend's studio, they recruited more musical friends, so Havenstreet was born. The influences had expanded now to bands and artists such as Peter Hammill, Strawbs, T…

Third in a trio of limited edition new LP’s from the ever mysterious Vibracathedral crew, returning from another relatively quiet period with an uncompromising set of outre’ jams. Slightly reorganized around a lineup of stalwarts Mick Flower and Adam Davenport with frequent collaborators John Godbert (Total) and John Moloney (Sunburned Hand of the Man), the band here stretches way, way out over these six sides, taking in several different styles while maintaining “that” sound all the way through…

Consisting of one side of solo lute material by Van Wissem and one side of new pieces by the duo. Film maker Jim Jarmusch plays electric and acoustic guitar and does tape on one piece. Van Wissem plays lute and 12 string electric guitar. CD edition.Jim Jarmusch and Jozef Van Wissem met on the streets of New York in 2006.  Finding that they shared many interests, both a friendship and a musical collaboration was soon born.  The duo has released two albums of lute and guitar compositions: Conce…

another gem, a wonderful collection of obscure solo acoustic guitar tunes from the mid 60s up to the dawn of the 80s -- beautiful work from a slew of players we've never heard of -- but we'd put right up there with Fahey and Basho in the way they reach from the back porch to the cosmos with just their fingers and some strings! One thing we love about this set, and the Numero Group releases to date, is how deep they dig and what beauty they unearth, somehow with impeccable sound quality. S…

this mindblowing album was originally released in 1972, when Robin Williamson was at the time still a member of the Incredible String Band, the ensemble he started with Mike Heron in 1966. These ten songs are all Williamson originals, with the exception of"Strings In The Earth And Air" by Ivan Pawle.Where his band's recordings were then getting increasingly electric, this is a return to a more acoustic bearing. This set includes some gorgeous, if overlooked, songs from the vast catalogue William…

Fluid forms of drones, doomy laments, & folk melodies fleshed out from a backbone of sine oscillators & violin. Behind these droning squalls is the lone figure of Marielle Jakobsons. Armed w/ her tiny army of sonic weapons, she concocts a lavaflow of melodies only to then bury them underneath a flowing river of muck. Limited to 500.

Like all pre-war recordings and all of Rose's releases, this album was recorded live. It was not created using overdubs but rather by recording a few 'takes' and selecting the best performance out of those. Rose stated, 'I wanted the songs to have an immediacy and spontaneity as they were being recorded. All the musicians chosen for the record know how to play the songs without overworking the material, but at the same time creating memorable accompaniments on the spot.' Several of the so…

Nick Drake's third and last album, 1972, voice and guitar alone with a single piano overdub. CD edition.

Two-Piers' late-night compilation of 1960s and 70s songs for stargazing: Skip Spence, Fred Neil, John Fahey, Roedelius, Captain Beefheart, Eden Ahbez, Nina Simone, Lonnie Liston Smith, Tim Buckley, Bill Fay and Gene Clark.

A reissue of Emtidi's Saat, originally released in 1972 as the 14th release on the legendary label PILZ. Producer Dieter Dierks prescribed the folk duo a good portion of cosmic electronic chords. The remaster sounds better than all issues before.

Still Valentine’s Day 1969’ is the highly anticipated live recording which was recorded at the same night as John Fahey’s seminal release ‘The Great Santa Barbara Oil Slick’ by influential solo guitarist Sandy Bull. Bull took elements of so many different kinds of music (Arabic, folk, jazz and Indian just for starters) and combined them to forge his characteristic style which would see him garner rabid fans with only a handful of releases. This particular recording was taken from a live show at …

Second album by this Yugoslavian band from 1980, typical in sound, style and emotional expression for the classic Eastern European progressive sound. The symphonic aspect with straight but very mind blowing synthesizer harmonies and cheerfully grand guitar leads have taken over the scepter from the debut album’s more space rock oriented direction here. A colorful, very lush but still strong and visionary ocean of melodies and sounds capes opens up before your ears and invites you to dive deep in…

First legit reissue of this debut album from 1970, predating their most commonly known Saat album from 1972. "Emtidi are best remembered nowadays for their classic album Saat, but prior to that release, the duo formed by Maik Hirschfeldt and Dolly Holmes had already released a marvelous LP. This superb debut album is filled with charming folk-oriented material. 6, 7 and 12 string acoustic guitars and beautiful flute arrangements surround the lovely female/male duet voices of Hirschfeldt and…

RESTOCKED, FEW AVAILABLE A sublime collisions of John Fahey-esque acid guitar picking set against trance-indulged eastern raga "Abate’s 4th album stands as the zenith of his solo work to date. Opening with an acid guitar and harmonica crescendo, somewhere between the Missisipi Delta and the desert, ‘Third Dimension Blues’ turns soon into a free, deep exploration of the possibilities of Maurizio’s instrument. The love he puts on every single touch of his strings, the warmth and the beauty of thes…

Sandy Bull may have been the first man in the '60s folk renaissance to foreground modal drones in his music and thereby forge a link between Scottish ballads, jazz, and sitar meditations. The results are seismic, and when seen in the light of the millennial freak-folk scene, they cast Bull as one of the genre's primary father figures. VANGUARD VISIONARIES seeks to introduce neophytes to Bull's finest noodlings, covering ground that's similar to the previous Vanguard best-of, RE-INVENTIONS. The d…

Australian folkie Paul Adolphus created some magical music back in the mid-1970s: mostly acoustic, intimate songs with a bewitching psychedelic gloss. This excellent obscurity was recorded in Japan in '73, and although it was critically acclaimed, it was never widely distributed. The album, reissued intact in 2007, also features Mitsu Harada on organ and piano.

The classic debut album by the UK's Forest, originally released in 1969 by Harvest. As the 1960s progressed, almost every musical genre was affected by the psychedelic boom -- and folk was no exception. Artists such as Bert Jansch, Davy Graham and Donovan had introduced elements of world music into their repertoires by 1965, and in 1966, The Incredible String Band's debut kicked the door wide open for a generation of young musicians to follow. Forest, whose two Harvest albums have long elated li…

Mellow disc of tripped-out experimental acoustic-instrument pieces from composer/instrument designer William Eaton, reissuing a self-released 1978 lp of said. there’s more than a twinge of Fahey/takoma-lineage steel-string wrangling herein, albeit augmented with a certain Partch/Hans Reichel-ish sensibility and unusual recording techniques... but it stays pretty damn “easy on the ears” throughout.. "When I started building instruments, playing guitar took on a whole new dimension. The process of…