Folk & Traditional / All styles

Guitarist Wall Matthews is surviving member of experimental 70's collective, Entourage. Sampled by Four Tet, their name whispered in reverence through the decades, Entourage forged bold musical ideas on their two rare ’70s Folkways LPs. Tompkins Square released Ceremony of Dreams : Studio Sessions and Outtakes, 1972-1977, in 2018 to wide acclaim. Spine River : The Guitar Music of Wall Matthews, 1967-1981 is a collection of unreleased or obscure music by the master guitarist. This volume will be …

**Clear vinyl. In process of stocking** Robbie Basho was one of the big three American acoustic guitar innovators, John Fahey and Leo Kottke being the other two. Basho was the least commercially successful of the three, but his influence and reputation has steadily grown since his untimely death in 1986 at the age of 45. And with good reason; for Basho's deeply spiritual approach, intellectual rigor, and formal explorations (among his goals was the creation of a raga system for American music), …

“Singer-songwriter” is a frustratingly confining term; to truly understand exactly just how confining, look no further than the recorded works of Simon Joyner, an artist whose work consistently transcends the narrow parameters of genre classifications and record shop bin cards. Though his music has always honored, reckoned with—wrestled with—the tradition set forth by his songwriting forebears (Cohen, Van Zandt, Ochs, Dylan, Reed to name a few), Joyner can always be counted on to defy expectatio…

* Edition of 300 * Alasdair Roberts is one of our more beloved folk singers of recent years (though he hates the term folk singer apparently). The Scottish musician here supplies another document of his fascinating interpretations of wild and rare traditional songs he's sourced from various parts of Scotland. Comes on a single sided 12". I am indebted to my piping friend Donald Lindsay for The Blythsome Bridal, The Braes of Tulliemet and The Smith’s a Gallant Fireman, while Chief O’Neill’s Favou…

Gatefold 180 gram vinyl reissue, remastered and manufactured by Rhino. One word describes If I Could Only Remember My Name from David Crosby...awesome! A real acid folk masterpiece whose inclusion in this catalogue might surprise some of the soundohm website visitors, but here it is. Originally released at the pinnacle of CSNY’s fame—singer-songwriter David Crosby’s 1971 solo debut is a transcendent tour de force that allmusic.com calls, “among the finest splinter albums out of the CSNY diaspora…

*2020 stock* In March 1975, Jim Sullivan mysteriously disappeared outside Santa Rosa, New Mexico. His VW bug was found abandoned, his motel room untouched. Some think he got lost in the desert. Some think he fell foul of a local family with alleged mafia ties. Some think he was abducted by aliens. By coincidence – or perhaps not – Jim’s 1969 debut album was titled U.F.O. Released in tiny numbers on a private label, it too was truly lost, until Seattle’s Light In The Attic Records begun a years-l…

*2020 stock* On March 4, 1975, Jim Sullivan mysteriously disappeared outside Santa Rosa, New Mexico. His VW bug was found abandoned, his motel room untouched. Some think he got lost. Some think the mafia bumped him. Some even think he was abducted by aliens. By coincidence–or perhaps not–Jim’s 1969 debut album was titled U.F.O. Released in tiny numbers on a private label, it too was truly lost until Light In The Attic Records began a years-long quest to re-release it–and to solve the mystery of …

Limited edition full-color gatefold LP version of the first Sublime Frequencies CD release from 2003. The equator runs through only ten countries on earth and I bet that you cannot name them all without consulting a map. Indonesia is one of them and the only nation in Asia with the equatorial stripe impaling it. There are so many different cultures spread out on this chain of islands that it would take several lifetimes to experience them all properly. Within this umbrella of diversity is one of…

A salve for folk souls and whoever needs it; Ben Chasny makes acoustic folk-pop great again. “In preparing for the first album of non-Hexadic Six Organs of Admittance music since 2012’s Ascent, Ben Chasny had a think about what he’d be saying in his own tongue for the first time in a half-decade. As ever, a head-full of ideas were driving him to think and speak music as a spirituality superimposed onto a reality, with the ghosts of both whispering at each other. In the end, what sits in our list…

**Edition 200** Mind-blowing set of duo improvisations from a string player once known as the King of the Dobro, and the original drummer for Morphine. Long based in the Boston area, Lloyd Thayer is a master musician as well as a teacher, a street performer (retired, I think) and a collector of esoteric stringed instruments (many of which are played with a slide). We were introduced to his work by Glenn Jones, who more or less grabbed us by the collars and hauled us to see him down at the 1000 I…

Minneapolis guitarist, Matt Sowell, is another of the many great players we were first introduced to at the Thousand Incarnations of the Rose festival in Takoma Park, MD. Matt played a richly dark and brooding set at Rhizome, with a style deeply indebted to the American Primitive tradition. His set had the raw strength of Fred Gerlach, the precision of Peter Lang, showed a country/blues influence that seemed to reference Fahey, and possessed the raga-meets-ragtime eclecticism of Jack Rose. We we…

**New vinyl reissue remastered from the original 1970s master tapes, packaged in classic Folkways-style tip-on jackets with original liner notes.** The hypnotic, delicate sound of the kora, the harp-like instrument strung on a halved gourd, has been a trademark of West African music for centuries. Gambian Griot Kora Duets (1979), featuring the master player Alhaji Bai Konte and his equally influential son Dembo Konte and Ma Lamini Jobate, is a remarkable recording that documents an evolution in …

"Impossibly rare recordings by the legendary finger-picker. Notes by John Renbourn. A musical 'amateur' that best exemplified true artistry, Lena Hughes was born in Grape Grove Township, Missouri, in 1904. Though she never recorded any 78s and only one LP, Hughes was most influential through her steady performances at various fiddler conventions and folk festivals throughout the Ozarks. She was an excellent fiddler, banjoist, and guitar picker who retained the largely extinct repertoire o…

Phil Lewin's homespun debut is a loner folk masterpiece; accidentally psychedelic, lit by heartbreak and timeless in its sadness and hope. 1975 Private-press LP (only 300 signed and numbered copies pressed at the time) now remastered from the original tapes. In his own words, today: in 1967 I began my life in the student union of a university. In other words, I was in school. But, classes definitely took a back seat to people-watching and attempts at relationships. I would not say that I was par…

Compilation of early gospel recordings spanning from 1927 - 1955. Sanctified blues by the Two Gospel Keys, Mother McCollum, Blind Rosevelt Graves, Lottie Bracey, Sister O.M Terrell & Rev. IB Ware. Beautiful slow country gospel by the Anglin Brothers & Delmore Brothers, Intense vocal performances by the New Gospel Keys, Elder Richard Briant & the Silent Grove Baptist Church Congregation, & much more! All killer no filler compilation that rocks hard & gets deep & sad too. Old school 'tip on' cover…

**In process of stocking** Mickey Guitar is Ken Matsutani, he was manager of the legendary Captain Trip Records. Japanese guitarist and vocalist, best known as the leader of Marble Sheep. He has also participated in several other Japanese rock underground groups including AOR and Cement Women (1982), Onna (1985), White Heaven (1986). "We, Matsutani and Haga were playing with Gamelan ( 16 performers) and Jegog ( 29 performers) at Indonesia Bali Island in March 2019. All recordings were done open …

Over the years, they would come to say that the Africans just appeared one day in Jamaica. That two Congo men somehow materialized on the streets of Kingston sometime in 1977, almost as if by magic, speaking not a word of English or patwa. The duo, they say, were musicians brought in by a Jamaican promoter – a woman who ditched them, leaving them to fend for themselves, stranded in a strange land. What really happened is harder to fully divine. The two young Africans – Molenga Mosukola (aka Seke…

Group Inerane is the now sound of the Tuareg Guitar Revolution sweeping across the Sahara Desert and inspired by the rebel musicians that started this music as a political weapon used to communicate from the Libyan Refugee camps in the 1980s and 1990s. Spearheaded by the enigmatic guitar hero Bibi Ahmed, Group Inerane has been together for several years and carries the rich tradition of Tamachek guitar songs for another generation. These ten tracks are a combination of amplified roots rock, blue…

50th Anniversary edition of Townes Van Zandt includes: 180 gram remastered vinyl, tip-on Jacket with obi strip, inner sleeve with autheticated lyrics.Townes Van Zandt's third recording is an early guitar-and-voice singer-songwriter classic laden with memorable originals. Start with For the Sake of the Song, an oft-recorded classic here enlivened by tasteful percussion. Move on to a couple of Van Zandt's gritty, death's door laments - Waiting Around to Die (where the ex-con protagonist finds a fr…

The Eighteenth Day of May were a six-piece, London based group. Originally formed as an acoustic trio consisting of American Alison Brice (vocals, flute), Swede Richard Olson (acoustic guitar, harmonica, sitar), and Ben Phillipson (guitar, mandolin), they combined elements of traditional and contemporary folk with a psychedelic jangle. They spent the summer and autumn of 2003 bonding over Fairport Convention, The Incredible String Band, Steeleye Span, Sandy Denny, and Trees all blending in with …

"Don Bikoff released one lone, rare solo album, Celestial Explosion, on Keyboard Records in 1968, now reissued by Tompkins Square. Watch the YouTube video of Bikoff playing on the Ted Mack Amateur Hour, taped May 12, 1968. You'll see the sheepish, long-haired, mustachioed musician spinning gold in a style (still?) so foreign to the mainstream listener. The befuddled host concludes after Don's performance, 'That's unusual to say the least.' A kid from Oyster Bay, LI, Bikoff got his start in Green…

**2020 repress** Fantome Phonographique present a reissue of Maya Deren's Voices Of Haiti, originally released as a 10" record in 1954. Maya Deren (1917-1961) was a Russian-American filmmaker and one of the most important voices in avant-garde cinema of the mid-20th century. She was a muse and inspiration to such up-and-coming avant-garde filmmakers as Curtis Harrington, Stan Brakhage, and Kenneth Anger, who emulated her independent, entrepreneurial spirit. Throughout the 1940s and '50s, Deren a…

This bundle includes two LPs recently issued by Canadian imprint Morning Trip.William Eaton "Music By William Eaton" (1978)Originally released in 1978, Music By William Eaton is a private-press album from the accomplished experimental stringed instrument builder. The atmospheric recording techniques, mixed with a hint of John Fahey/Takoma-lineage make for a listening experience akin to the mountainscape drawing represented on the album cover. The experience may seem simple at first, but like any…

**2020 stock** Sitar Music of North Brooklyn, the fourth volume in American composer David First’s “Same Animal, Different Cages” series, is perhaps one of his strongest musical statements since he radically re-invented how to approach the acoustic guitar in volume one. While First’s sitar improvisations are engrossing and pleasurable to hear, easy listening they are not. This is First challenging himself and challenging you, the listener, to grapple with his unorthodox and experimental approach…

From 1926 to 1930 one of the most popular rural string bands on record was Charlie Poole & The North Carolina Ramblers. Through their 78 RPM discs and their various performances, Charlie Poole was second only to Gid Tanner and His Skillet Lickers. Poole's uniquely syncopated three finger banjo picking style coupled with his Piedmont vocal inflections eventually colored and defined much of what we consider "old-time" music. The classic configuration of banjo, fiddle and guitar with vocals was enc…

Apocalyptic rebetika recordings from the 1930s through to late '50s. Songs of sorrow, poverty, loss and the general end of this god forsaken planet.

A compilation of field recordings made in the 1960s and 70s. These musical traditions are the result of many centuries, but the tracks sound so modern - revitalising, relaxing, healing This is some of the best traditional African music ever recorded. The music is the star -- of course -- then comes the wonderful musicians who performed it, but it was the recordists who make it possible for us to listen to the genius in African music captured on these magnificent tracks. After having released the…

Long out of print, few copies spotted of this late 70's dreamy folk album...Veronique Chalot was born in Normandy in the north of France, but it was in Paris that she first became interested in traditional French folk music. In 1974 she landed in Rome where she soon earned a small, but dedicated following. England may have its Jacqui McShee (Pentangle), but France and Italy have its Veronique Chalot. For the past three decades Veronique has dedicated herself to playing, recording and researching…

"Fantôme Phonographique present a reissue of Om Kalsoum's La Ya Habiby, originally released in 1963. A titan of middle eastern music, the contralto singer Om Kalsoum (or, Umm Kulthum) was hailed as "The Voice of Egypt" or "Egypt's Fourth Pyramid," and as she reportedly sold over 80 million records worldwide during her lifetime, she is one of the most popular singers of all time. Born in a small village in the Nile Delta, either in the late 1890s or the early 1900s, she joined her father's family…

Fledg'ling Books in association with Topic Records present Teach Me to Be a Summer's Morning, a portrait of the late Lal Waterson through a collection of her writings, drawings, paintings, stained glass, and a 15-track CD of very rare home demos. Known primarily as a singer and songwriter, Lal Waterson is shown, through this beautiful new book, to be much more: a versatile and vibrant artist. The 15 songs on the CD confirm her stature as a songwriter of rare imagination, depth, and rich beauty; …

Includes download code. "Part of a collaboration with Jack Rose's estate and Three Lobed Records to restore all of his LPs to print, VHF presents new vinyl editions of the celebrated guitarist's first three solo albums, newly cut by John Golden Mastering from the original source material. Originally issued on LP by Eclipse Records between 2002-04, these releases chart an eclectic, more experimental approach left behind as his technique and compositions became more refined and deliberate on…

Six Organs of Admittance is back after 3 years with a new record, new techniques in sound generation, and a new attitude. Companion Rises has a driving force only hinted at with previous releases. Manipulating the rhythmic DNA from songs such as the bass-dominated “Taken by Ascent” (on his last record, Burning the Threshold), Ben Chasny has grown a new sound creature in his lab that is as welcoming as it is terrifying and as fun to listen to as it provocative and intriguing.Methodologically, Com…

Born in a nomad camp in Niger and now a leading figure of desert rock, Mdou Moctar stands out as the most innovative artist in contemporary Saharan music. His unconventional interpretations of Tuareg guitar have pushed him to the forefront of a crowded scene. In contrast to polished “world music” fare, Mdou trades in unrelenting grit and has no qualms about going full shred.  A long time coming, “Ilana:The Creator” is Mdou Moctar's first true studio album. Recorded in Detroit at the tail end of …

The Backward Path marks a departure for Dan Melchior in a number of ways. It is his first album to feature other musicians since his time with the Broke Revue, and it also marks a change in his songwriting methods, with more heartfelt sentiments being expressed rather than the usual flood of snide non sequiturs. It is also a quieter album, without much of the “did he mean it to sound like that?” sonic onslaught of Catbirds & Cardinals.Dan’s wife Letha Rodman Melchior was diagnosed with cancer in…

Revenants, Prodigies And The Restless Dead is pressed on high quality virgin vinyl at RTI in a hand-numbered edition of 500 copies for the world. Included is a free MP3 download coupon and insert.Immune is proud to present a deluxe and limited edition vinyl version of the brand new album from British guitarist C Joynes. This is the second widely available album from Joynes (after last year’s God Feeds The Ravens) and is being released simultaneously on CD by Bo’Weavil Recordings.C Joynes is a mu…

An album of new Hurley songs and older, classic compositions from the great American folk outsider, all arranged and performed beautifully at Levon Helm's Woodstock studio. Ida Con Snock has to rank as one of Michael Hurley's most slick sounding enterprises, but it's also a completely natural and untampered with vision of his songs, and there's a tremendous purity of intent resounding throughout pieces like the wonderful and poignant 'Wildegeeses' and the Appalachian fiddle-adorned 'Hog Of The F…

Named one of the ten best solo acoustic guitar albums of the year by The Out Door and a top ten album of the year by The Liminal, Tom Lecky’s debut album as Hallock Hill elicited a powerful response when it was first released on CD by Hundred Acre Recordings last May. The album’s unique assembly of stacked and layered acoustic, electric and lap steel guitars delivered a new kind of studio improvisation: pieces that were spontaneously made, yet feel composed, pieces that glide from harmonio…

The Spirit Of Indonesia is a newly curated collection of traditional tunes from various regions and ethnic groups of the South East Asian archipelago. These historic live recordings are as "first-take" as it gets, conveying the true soul and spirit of this wonderful region, through discrete pieces coming from very different heritages. 45rpm audiophile vinyl; Limited edition of 300.

The first volume of Sounds From The Archipelago: An Introduction To The Lush Indonesian Music Tradition gathers traditional music from different areas of the Indonesian archipelago, featuring music from Sulawesi, The Moluccas Islands (Spice Islands), and Central Java. In the first track from Sulawesi ("Gandrung Bulo"), the lead is taken by the percussion made of bamboo drums, later joined by two male voices in the second track. This is traditional entertainment music which is typically play…

The Departing of a Dream, Vol. VII is the debut collaboration between two giants of the New York avant-garde ­— guitarist Loren Connors and saxophonist/trumpeter Daniel Carter. It's a gorgeous, languorous soundscape distilled from the darkest reaches of blues and jazz. For nearly 17 years Connors has used the Departing series to continue his meditation on Miles Davis' epic "He Loved Him Madly" and expand his efforts to create disappearing music. The duo does just that, vanishing behind decaying …