Folk & Traditional / All styles

2009 release. Portland, OR. bedroom wanderer Ilyas Ahmed emerges from the shadows and offers up his first new batch of songs in some time. Over a year in the making, Goner sees Ahmed telescoping his previous acoustic wanderings into fuzzed out rockers and a hypnotic set of beautifully tight knit nocturnes. The kick off of 'Earn Your Blood' is probably the most amped up and stoned out Ahmed has ever sounded, a heavy blown out thump of hiss & electric strum. From their Goner really gets los…

Curated by Jozef van Wissem the “New Music For Old Instruments” festival took place all over the world: in Brussels, New York, Paris, Utrecht, Antwerp and other cities. The idea was to rid traditional instruments of their clichés. When one thinks of a lute for example the Robin Hood image comes to mind of the player standing under a balcony serenading a lady and getting a flower pot thrown at him. In order to update the instrument, to make it mature and give it it’s recognition it deserves, one …

Bill Fay is one of English music's best kept secrets. At the dawn of the 1970s, he was a one-man song factory, with a piano that spilled liquid gold and a voice every bit the equal of Ray Davies, John Lennon, early Bowie, or Procol Harum's Gary Brooker. He made two solo albums but his contract wasn't renewed, which left his LPs and his reputation to become cult items. But he never stopped writing, the music kept on coming. Now, in his late sixties, he has produced Life Is People, a brand …

Fledg'ling's 2004 reissue of one of the highest-regarded British folk-rock albums, featuring Sandy Denny. Originally issued by Island in 1970 (previous Hannibal CD long o/p). With additional artwork and bonus tracks. Fotheringay's beautiful debut album was recorded in 1970, and has long been regarded as one of the greatest achievements of British folk-rock. Sandy Denny, Trevor Lucas, Jerry Donahue, Pat Donaldson and Gerry Conway created a magical ensemble sound and one of the finest albums of…

'The only album by Tia Blake was recorded at the Ossian Studio in Paris in 1971 and released that same year by the tiny French label SFP (Societe Francaise de Productions Phonographiques). Great psych-folk with guitars, dobro, flute and fantastically fragile female vocals. First time available on CD, with Tia Blake's own recollections."

Reissued on Fledg'ling in 2005, originally released in 1965 by Decca. An experimental recording conceived by Austin John Marshall bringing together Shirley's haunting traditional song with Davy's guitar improvisations. Folk Roots, New Routes opened the door for Fairport Convention's Liege and Lief and Pentangle's debut. For this carefully remastered edition, Fledg'ling have restored the original artwork, added a new sleeve-note essay as well as previously unpublished photographs.

More than seventy years since his death in 1937, Ustad Abdul Karim Khan retains his reputation as one of the greatest singers India ever produced. Possessed of an elastic, honied voice that poured out like mercury, he influenced generations of singers including Mohammed Rafi, Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, and Pandit Pran Nath. Born at the end of the 19th century to a family of musicians that extended back in time for centuries, his art was formed in the culture of the courts of the maharajas under Briti…

At some point all great explorers, from Amundsen to Kishan Singh Rawat, come to an opening up and cast their minds across a big space. A clearing, a promontory, a look out from a place no one's been before. Jakob Olausson ventured deep on Moonlight Farm, his debut for De Stijl in the winter of 2005. His singular expression returns on Morning and Sunrise, an explorer's codex, a gaze through to what's more important and less seen. The path yet traveled and the sun arcing over it. Morning and Sunri…

To say that the last few years of Gareth Dickson’s life have been tumultuous would be an understatement. In 2007 he fell in love with a girl from South America, packed up a few essentials from his life in Scotland, and moved to the Argentinian countryside. It didn’t turn all fairy tale at that point, however. While there he was shot at, attacked by dogs, and was involved in a very close call when the passenger plane he took to a little town in the Andes was forced down after an engine cau…

Michael Chapman, one of the finest acoustic guitar innovators borne of the late '70s UK folk scene, was in Philadelphia early 2010, paying tribute to his good friend, the late Jack Rose, a mighty six-string alchemist in his own right, and a youngster wholly inspired by Chapman's critical recordings. While sharing in the good light of friendship backstage, we asked Michael if he'd ever recorded an LP of purely improvised guitar music. It seemed feasible, as the current state of acou…

"I find this disc to be consistently superb and often sublime. 
Cian writes contemplative, melodic and somewhat bluesy songs that 
always ring true. The one cover, Baka Dance, has more of an older, 
folky theme, but all of the songs have an organic, human quality that 
feels just right. If this was released in the mid-70's, it would fit 
perfectly in the Takoma catalogue with John Fahey and Leo Kottke. 
Pretty great company for a young whippersnapper like Cian Nugent." Downtown musi…

“Once some music dropped through my letter-box; let’s summon their sounds into our world now, and deliver their names as Roses or Stations. The picture they imagined was both clear and cryptic: the certainties of the 17th century holding tight the ugly beauty that we now see scattered around us. I loved these CDs by Jozef van Wissem, A Rose by any other Name and Stations of the Cross. And then I received a new album, A Priori, and I immediately played it and heard its stark and repetitive intens…

Tan or Boil – a pun on the name of bratty short stop from those 1970s Bad News Bears films that stuck – is the alias of the Pittsburgh-born Jason Bacasa. After growing up in Pittsburgh and studying graphic design, Jason took flight from his home town to work freelance in a variety of cities, though his latest and current stint in New York seems more permanent than those in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Chicago. On the songwriting side, Jason’s continual travels kept him to just an acoustic guit…

The Preservation label presents Beeswax Ephemera from Iowa City guitarist Evan Miller. With one eye on the future and one on the past, his playing has considerable technical and abstract expanse, though retains a wonderful melodic sensibility upfront. Evan’s experimental leanings give Beeswax Ephemera an idiosyncratic quality that mark an inventive new talent in the world of artists taking guitar music into exciting new directions. These nominally earthy compositions take flight with the undenia…

For all intents and purposes, Grand Salvo is the work of singer-songwriter Paddy Mann. Grand Salvo’s debut album, 1642-1727, and its follow-up, River Road, earned him rave reviews and a solid following at home and beyond for his stark, sensitive and beautiful songs. After a spell living in Europe, Paddy returned to Australia and began work on another album he’d dreamt up while away, A set of songs that acts as a children’s storybook, the album became cursed with too many recording problems and P…

The name under which Melbourne singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Paddy Mann records and performs, Grand Salvo has quietly and unassumingly developed a body of work that has inspired both hardcore devotion and more recently, wider recognition, stemming from his previous album, Death. The ambitious fairytale orchestration received rave reviews from all over the country. With Soil Creatures, Grand Salvo has returned with no less scope but sits within quieter surroundings. This gorgeous s…

"This latest in the ever-popular Latitudes series comes from Drag City avant-folkists White Magic, who have turned in a single ten-minute piece based on Eastern harmonies, delay loops and a tranced out approach to jamming that verges on Sunburned Hand Of The Man territory. For the vast majority of its duration 'New Egypt' relies upon a central three-note piano riff, which soon accumulates layer after layer of various other instrumental sources while seemingly improvised lyrics haunt the song thr…

Mid-70’s album of instrumental Appalachian fiddling (with guitar and bass accompaniment) by a guy who, after a grisly gun-related injury, developed a between-the-legs bow technique. Mr. Smith was a repository of would-be lost traditional tunes, and his unique, microtonal playing only makes these gems all the more precious. For fans of the Anthology of American Folk Music and/or Jandek.

Recorded live at Camber Sands Holiday Park, England on May 14, 2006. Featuring RICHARD YOUNGS (bass guitar) & ALEX NEILSON (drums)"At this 2006 concert, we have Jandek with a sympathetic rhythm section, and like a rhythm section that would back, say, a Lightnin’ Hopkins or a John Lee Hooker, they adapt themselves to the artist’s flow and provide a kind of pillowy environment or canvas on which he can do his thing. To give you an analogy from the free jazz world, some of the recent Jandek p…

CD edition, lavishly packaged: In the last couple of years there's been no shortage of lost folk albums re-appearing for the world to enjoy once more, and the wonderful Numero Group label (which is fast becoming one of our most loved imprints...) has managed to find another. Hailing from the bleak northern city of Halifax, Catherine Howe was initially trained at drama school, gaining a brief stint in Doctor Who ('The Underwater Menace' for all you Whovians out there, wink wink) among othe…

RESTOCKED, reduced price - Having recorded a significant body of work under various guises including A Broken Consort and Clouwbeck, Richard Skelton returns with a brand new and long anticipated album under his own name. Following on from 'Marking Time' (originally released via Preservation in 2008 only to be reissued on limited vinyl by Type over the summer), 'Landings' is an album steeped in the wild rural landscape of Skelton's surroundings. Over the span of just a few releases he's ma…

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…

For fans of acoustic guitar music, James Blackshaw's The Cloud of Unknowing is a gift that's long overdue. Blackshaw's fourth album gracefully glides over the same sonic ground that his contemporaries generally tread with reverential obedience or dilettante tactics. Growing into his prodigious own at the relatively young age of 25, Blackshaw has finessed his 12-string acoustic guitar into a veritable solo symphony that's as schooled in uncommon beauty as it is in complex 20th century composition…

Originally released in a tiny pressing of just 200 CD-Rs by Digitalis Industries, this early James Blackshaw release is brought back in print by the Tompkins Square label, who on the back of last year's 'Cloud Of Unknowing' are intent upon reintroducing the guitarist' back-catalogue to his growing legion of fans (of whom there is almost certainly more than 200). 'Lost Prayers And Motionless Dances' is a single thirty-five minute composition, opening with droning harmonium passages and only…

With a mindblowing track gracing this weeks phenomenal ‘Gold Leaf Branches’ compilation, James Blackshaw's brilliant "Sunshrine" album is finally being made available on cd. At only 23 years of age, Blackshaw has already mustered up enough talent on the guitar to put many more renowned acts to shame. His gorgeous finger picked melodies on 12-string guitar are incredibly affecting and a stark contrast to the ragas and ragtimes of peer Jack Rose. Instead of concentrating on replicating a sp…

Another Tompkins Square reissue of early James Blackshaw material, and this is about as early as it gets: Celeste originally surfaced on Celebrate Psi Phenomenon a full five years ago and set the blueprint fr just about every solo recording he's made since. While the first part of the album finds Blackshaw in solo 12-string mode, the second deviates from the well-trodden Takoma-styled path and heads into an effects-laden drone composition. This sort of style-melding approach would come to…

It was once easy to think of James Blackshaw as an inheritor of the Takoma tradition, a school of searching acoustic guitar playing pioneered by John Fahey, Robbie Basho, Leo Kottke, and others in the 1960s. But listening to the English guitarist's new album, it's clear it's not that simple. While echoes of those three and some of their contemporaries are still present in Blackshaw's music, these days you can hear just as much Terry Riley and Philip Glass in his work. His synthesis of acoustic e…

Likeness is the newest release from the duo of Tom and Christina Carter. Recorded over a period of several weeks during the Spring of 2006, the album is a return to the spontaneous composition of previous Charalambides records such as Houston and Union. With the exception of "The Good Life", which appeared in a primitive version on the Wholly Other CDR Home, all of the tracks on this release sprung forth after 'record' was pressed, and were fleshed out via overdubs, editing, and a malfu…

To say that the words "unique" and "singular" are over-used in describing music is to state the obvious.  To apply these words to the sounds created by the various duo/trio configurations of the Texas group Charalambides  over the last decade plus would be understatement. To be sure there are numerous antecedents to their music; to deny this of any artist's work would be akin to saying that they are deaf. But they have surely broken new ground in the primitive/folk/mystic/improv/psych valley in …

For this latest album Caledonian folk impresario Alasdair Roberts teams up with expected collaborators like Alex Neilson (whose drumming and percussion work has illuminated many a free-folk record over recent years, a few of which Roberts has been involved with) and more unusual contributors such as Niko-Matti Ahti of Fonal's Kiila. Perhaps more than ever, Roberts' music invites comparisons to Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, traveling sufficiently far from the trad songwriting fold to be thought of as 'a…

Effervescent songbird JANE WEAVE unveils a canon of femme-folk, laden with finger picked meandering melodies, ethereal harmonies and wistful leanings. In the same vei as acid folk  such as Linda Perhacs and Karen Dalton, this decade spanning collection traces a line between the acid-soaked protest rumblings of yesteryear and the forward/backward facing revivalists of today.

2009 repress. First ever U.S. reissue of this album, with new liner notes by Peter Margasak. Released in 1971 while Gil was living in London, this is the third self-titled release from the bossa nova and tropicalia legend. Gil recorded this album while in political exile from his native Brazil and its somber, straightforward tone is a welcome change from the experimental, psychedelic assault of his 1969 long player. Featuring 8 originals and a brilliant cover Steve Winwood's 'Can't Find My Way H…

This 1972 classic captures saxophonist Paul Winter and his ensemble at the height of their improvisational powers. Winter was one of the first artists to incorporate such exotic instruments as the sitar and tabla into his music and the result was memorable chamber jazz-folk played in the wonderfully experimental, post-hippie way only Winter and his merry band could. The title track, one of guitarist Ralph Towner's compositions, became famous for its pensive melody and soaring soprano sax. "Whole…

The duo of Aiko Kogo & Anthony Guerra 1st made their presence known on a micro-edition CD-R from New Zealand's Pseudoarcana. Guerra sets the pace w/ layers of makeshift percussion & guitar. Kogo also plays ukelele, but it's her voice that is the real focal point on the album. This is fractured pop perfection.

Java is the center of Indonesian culture. Three out of every four Indonesians live on Java. It is the home of some of the most elegant musical styles to be found anywhere. To the veteran international sound collector, Javanese music is no secret. For the uninitiated, rather than going through an introductory outline of Javanese music history, I will wish you away to the internet, a library, or bookstore where you can find plenty of information on the subject. The selections on this CD are a comb…

There's clearly a great deal of care and thought gone into the sequencing of this ace new mixtape on Arthur Magazine's record label, and that's down to the estimable taste and selection skills of Al Cisneros (known for his work in the bands Om , Sleep and Shrinebuilder). Opening with the introductory cosmic ambience of Lichens' 'Kopernik Trip Note', the playlist takes a left turn towards Linval Thompson's classic 'Wicked Babylon' before stopping by the sublime 'Everyone In Turn' by Grouper (the …

Birth Canal Blues is the first CD release on Coptic Cat, the new label started by David Tibet and Current 93. The album consists of one 20-minute song in four movements that sets the basic narrative structure of Anok Pe Current 93's new Hallucinatory Mountain trilogy, whose first part, Invocation of Hallucinatory Mountain, is due in January 2009. Birth Canal Blues was recorded by Tibet, Baby Dee, John Contreras, and Andrew Liles. The packaging includes an 8-page color booklet with photographs fr…

The three cultures at the center of the songs on this recording make a joint appearance in the finale of the Siete cantos de España. They are formed into a unified whole in Ensalada, as the soprano and the baritone begin singing together texts of Castilian, Sephardic and Arabic origin. The poems’ subjects are love, agony and death; and in order to bring them to life Halffter requires a large orchestra of about 100 musicians and two soloists with the baritone singing Spanish texts and the soprano…

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…

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.