Folk Us
JEANETTE LEECH listens to the noise made by the new folk releases while saluting the late Trish Keenan from Broadcast.
What do you get when acid-folk and anti-folk heroes meet? As well as lots of tenuous new genre tags (antacid folk, anyone?), you get one truly unique and marvellous album. Come On Board (self- released) by PETER STAMPFEL
AND JEFFREY LEWIS mixes Stampfel’s old-timey irreverence, honed but never tamed over decades (most notably in his stint with The Holy Modal Rounders) and Lewis’s pinpoint observations on modern life. Both men have a healthy sense of humour, punk spirit and penchant for surreal trains of thought, and in songs such as ‘I Spent The Night In The Wax Museum’ and ‘Bottlecaps Are Cool’ they are all given centre-stage. Yet what tips this album over from simply being an enjoyable riot is that all the joie-de-vivre is balanced with insight and poignancy. It’s most outstanding on ‘Gong Of Zero’; Lewis and Stampfel inject this song, a Michael Hurley slice of anguish from 1965, with a whole new level of rootsy sorrow. I adore both of these artists as individuals, and this collaboration is clearly one of mutual respect that brings out the best in both.
Just when you think, “Oh, what could another bloke with a guitar and a head full of brooding thoughts possibly have to tell me by now”, along comes JOHN STAMMERS to blow that cynicism out of the water. On his
self-titled debut (Wonderful Sound) he wanders through the modern world, offering up an intelligent, kitchen table intimacy in his lyrics and an understated vocal style. There are touches of Bonzo-style jazzy weirdness on ‘Hit You From Behind’, and I’m generally very taken with Stammers’ sensitive guitar playing, which seems inflected both with American Primitive and that ’70s British brilliance of figures like Dave Evans. As I rarely whole-heartedly recommend relatively straight singer- songwriter albums, you know you can trust me on this one.
CUBS are one of the branches of the seemingly infinite tree of modern Irish free-folk; featuring members of United Bible Studies and Phantom Dog Beneath The Moon (among many others), the debut album The Whispering
Woods (Deadslackstring/Rusted Rail) is a delicate concoction with the sun on its back and a gentle, shifting vibe. It’s a largely instrumental record with an array of sweetly strummed and picked acoustics, occasional spoken interludes, and a hazy, welcoming bonhomie. Most of the tracks are short, feel largely improvised, and rotate in joyous, slightly psychedelic circles. Yet that’s not to say it’s all calm sailing.Witness ‘In Cubs There Is No North And South’, a spooky, lilting piece that’s suddenly rent with an electric jolt and disembodied voices. This really is tremendously good and shows that, however massive the output for those in this collective, there’s never a ‘will-this-do’ dip in quality.
Another album very much from the experimental school of folk is CURRER BELLS. Penpals Angeline Chirnside and Tim Coster sent splinters of sound between Dublin and New Zealand and, when stitched together, they
crafted the relatively short, vinyl only Currer Bells (Quetzi). I love the field recording atmosphere of this mostly instrumental record, and its ability to evoke emotional quandaries with the simple interplay of repeated, unusual sounds (as on the highlight, ‘Gleam’). When Chirnside does use her vocals, they are quiet and beguiling; Currer Bells is a flower slowly opening for the touch of morning dew.
Ben Chasny’s SIX ORGANS OF ADMITTANCE is another project that does iridescent folk pools extremely well, albeit with a post- psychedelic swirl and troubadour essence. On the latest album Asleep On The Floodplain (Drag
City) Chasny brings to mind his earliest work as Six Organs, those glissading late ’90s and early ’00s albums that sounded so very unusual at that time. There’s one absolute stunner on this record – the droney, episodic and jittery ‘S/Word And Leviathan’ – while the remainder is all good, solid, Six Organs material. Floodplain does not stand shoulder-to- shoulder with Six Organs’ best work, but that’s a mild criticism; instead it sits proudly in his vast back catalogue of always-interesting records.
Bringing us back down to terra firma with a bump is EARTH and Angels Of Darkness, Demons Of Light (Southern Lord) and its metallic take on heavy folk. Earth emerged in the post- grunge, post-post rock
netherworld of the early ’90s. Their new album balances an idolatry of Black Sabbath with a kind of folk-derived drone that recalls Jack Rose’s band Pelt. If you’re looking for harmony or frothiness bend your ears elsewhere; for my tastes, the tracks are too indistinguishable and the mood too portentous, but its doomy gauze is undeniable.
On their debut album ERLAND AND THE CARNIVAL positioned themselves somewhat awkwardly between full-throttle indie and a post-Tunng folktronica. With Nightingale (Full Time Hobby) they are now
perching, again in a rather ungainly fashion, between rough folk-rock and modern pop music. This is a big improvement, for now virtually every song flings hooks and melody around, sometimes also switching on a film- score incongruity (such as on ‘Emmeline’). There are still remnants of that laptop folk style, but these are when the album is at its weakest; go along for a potholed pop ride instead, and you won’t be disappointed.
A-LINE are a male-female duo who, on the cover of new download-only album Nash Point (self-released) look more like an electronic pop act than the odd little folkies they really are. Singer Gemma Tortella has slightly tormented vocals that skitter over the
stuttering, echoed guitar on tracks like ‘Snow And Felt’ and the tremulous cover of ‘Heart Of Glass’.
Best trad record this column goes to CORNCROW and Sweet Nightingale (self-released). This seven-track CD may cover familiar material like ‘Cruel Sister’ and ‘Spencer The Rover’, but it offers up appealing pensive interpretations. The
self-penned ‘Pysk Pi’ is also a highlight, featuring the tradition Cornish drum, the Crowdy Crawn. Sweet Nightingale has an early ’70s, Mr Fox-style feel.
CAEDMON was one of the original ultra-obscure acid folk acts; one private press album, released in ’78, and nothing
thereafter.The rediscovery and re-evaluation of their album has inspired Caedmon to regroup and the result is A Chicken
To Hug (self-released). With stunning opener ‘Peace In The Fire’ it’s almost as if the album was released one, not 32, years later, with its acoustic tartness and piercing vocals. However, it’s not a sustained mood, and elsewhere there are rockier, more conventional songs, albeit with appealing peeks of folk weirdness.
The John Barleycorn Reborn compilation from 2007 made tangible a lot of the tendrils of the new British folk music – the traditional grounding, the psychedelic folk hues, the influences from across the pond. Now the
sequel of sorts, We Bring You A King With A Head Of Gold: Dark Britannica II (Cold Spring) does the same for the latest crop of shrouded, forested folkies. It’s a little too similarly toned to really justify two full CDs (giving the impression that the compilers just couldn’t say no to any submissions) but it has moments of real brilliance: the swoonworthy Sproatly Smith, the curious storytelling of The Kittiwakes and, especially, Mama’s core-shaking ‘The Fool Of Spring’.
www.thejeffreylewissite.com www.wonderfulsound.com www.deadslackstring.com www.rustedrail.com www.myspace.com/currerbells www.dragcity.com www.southernlord.com www.fulltimehobby.co.uk a-line.bandcamp.com/ www.myspace.com/corncrow www.caedmonsreturn.com www.coldspring.co.uk
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