V/A - Folk Off - New Folk and Psychedelia from the British Isles and North America

Over three decades on, it's happening again. Only more so.

In a blind taste test, eight out of ten cats had no way of telling that the eerie psych-folk rendering of Rosemary Lane came from Philadelphia's Espers. Or that the corner of Appalachia which spawned Deep Elem is actually Herefordshire. Or that Eighteenth Day Of May's jingle-jangle mourning emerged from a kitchen in London.

All of which leads us to Folk Off. A bad pun, but a great idea. A folk-off between Britain and America. A demonstration that the oldest instrument in the tableau of popular song is capable of making of the most cutting-edge music, the people you hear in Folk Off are not luddites. On songs by Animal Collective (US) and Magnetophone (UK) you'll hear acoustic guitars cast as the eye of a lysergic electrical storm, Try.and pin down the sleepy backwoods funk of Oregon's Blitzen Trapper and the past will be of no help to you.
Where exactly do you locate the 'folk' centre to all these songs? Whither the point of intersection between the sepia dream-haze of Laura Cantrell's Bees and Tunng's stunning acoustic reconfiguration of Bloc Party's Pioneers? Or Jack Lewis's The Day ,Neil Young Died and the unadorned twilit wonder of This Is The Kit' s Two Wooden Spoons? Partially as a result of James Yorkston's typically playful decision to go fully electronic on his contribution, even the guitar takes its leave from a couple of songs.

Maybe then, we should take our lead from Austrian philosopher and sometime folk aficionado Ludwig Wittgenstein, who opined that sometimes the only common characteristic that binds a class of objects is 'family resemblance'. Spend a day or two in the company of these artefacts, and you'll realize that theory has everything going for it. Families always gather together on special occasions. And this extended family of artists - disparate yet unmistakably connected - is absolutely no exception.
Come in and join us. We've been expecting you.

V/A - Folk Off - New Folk and Psychedelia from the British Isles and North America
cd1 / cd2

The British Isles
1-01 Tunng — The Pioneers (4:28)
1-02 North Sea Radio Orchestra — Guitar Miniature (1:15)
1-03 Acid Casuals — Bowl Me Over (3:05)
1-04 This Is The Kit — Tow Wooden Spoons (2:50)
1-05 Vashti Bunyan — Here Before (2:04)
1-06 James Yorkston & Reporter — Woozy With Cider (4:19)
1-07 Songs Of Green Pheasant — Nightfall (For Boris P) (4:22)
1-08 Clayhill — Beard (2:50)
1-09 Eighteenth Day Of May — Dawn (2:49)
1-10 Deep Elem — Lost In The Woods (1:56)
1-11 Jakokoyak — Eira (3:22)
1-12 Same Actor — Nothing Yet (4:20)
1-13 The Hat — 3AM: Dnken Lullaby (3:16)
1-14 Magnetophone — And May Your Last Word Be A Chance To Make Things Better (4:05)
1-15 Listen WIth Sarah — Blue Parsley (7:17)

North America
2-01 Micah P. Hinson — Yard Of Blonde Girls (3:00)
2-02 Marissa Nadler — Famous Blue Raincoat (4:23)
2-03 Vetiver — Amour Fou (4:34)
2-04 Richard Swift — Sad Song St. (2:15)
2-05 Dr. Dog — The World Will Never Know (3:04)
2-06 Espers — Rosmary Lane (4:41)
2-07 Au Revoir Simone — Through The Backyards (3:54)
2-08 Laura Cantrell — Bees (4:11)
2-09 Sufjan Stevens — Decatur, Or, A round Of Applause For Your Step-Mother (3:10)
2-10 Readymade FC — Snow Lion (3:38) Feat. Feist
2-11 Jack Lewis — The Day Neil Young Died (3:13)
2-12 Animal Collective — Kids On Holiday (5:46)
2-13 Baby Dee — Morning Holds A Star (3:34)
2-14 Mi & L’Au — Bums (2:41)
2-15 Blitzen Trapper — 40 Stripes (3:50)

local site

twisted folk site

Freak Folk Flies High- A new generation of flower children keeps psychedelic folk alive

Orbital - The Bedroom Sessions

Classics and inspirations selected by Pete and Phil Hartnoll.
Free with the April 2002 issue of Mixmag.

The least you can say about this is that you're going to hear something new. Classic Moving Shadow hardcore mixed up with dark breaks, punk,dub and The Divine Comedy - eh? I bet you'll never see that again. Its a bit like your listening to John Peel, except everything is at the right speed and the same thing hasn't just been played twice. It certainly put a smile on my face (except when Basket case came on, then I hid in the corner).

Orbital - The Bedroom Sessions

01 Hyper On Experience - Disturbance (5:54)
02 Plump DJs - Remember My Name (6:42)
03 Koma & Bones - Fade In (The Programme) (6:43)
04 The Divine Comedy - Victoria Falls (3:59)
05 Stisch - JFK (4:44)
06 Dub Syndicate - Forever More (4:10)
07 Ubik - Ram Raid (4:51)
08 Eon - Basket Case (5:37)
09 Dark Globe - Some Say She's Retro (6:51)
10 Midi Rain - Crack Train (5:15)
11 Mouse On Mars - Frosch (4:09)
12 Mark Stewart And The Maffia - Liberty City (5:18)
13 The Specials - Nite Klub (3:11)
14 Severed Heads - Cyflea, Rated R (3:36)

orbital website

Dub Syndicate - Classic Selection volume 3

Drummer Style Scott joined Adrian Sherwood's influential On-U Sound dub label in the late '70s and played on Sherwood's influential releases as the New Age Steppers (with vocalist Bim Sherman, horn player Deadly Headley, melodica player Dr. Pablo, and a large guest lineup). Scott later formed his own band, Dub Syndicate, which soon became, with the possible exception of African Headcharge, On-U Sound's most popular act. Though not a group per se, Style Scott and producer Sherwood explore reggae, dub and dancehall by collaborating with some of reggae and dub's greatest talents, including Lee "Scratch" Perry, Skip McDonald, U-Roy and, in a bit of posthumous sampling of an old friend, Prince Far I (on 1990's Stoned Immaculate).

On-U Sound, in conjunction with the American label Restless, originally reissued three volumes of the Classic Selection series.

Dub Syndicate - Classic Selection volume 3
side one / side two

Let The Spirit Rise
African Landing
Can't Take It Easy
Dub Violation
Backward Never
Without Reservation
Bazooke
Fucious Pt 1
Fucious Pt 2
Forever More (Dub)
Wellie
Overboard
Jolly
Out And About


Dub Syndicate will perform at The Big Chill 2009> steve barker piece here

Dub Syndicate website

dub syndicate-classic selection vol one & more on-u sound albums here at rocket remnants

Moondog -- The Viking Of Sixth Avenue

He howled at the moon before Allen Ginsberg, freewheeled it to New York from the Midwest before Bob Dylan, and was more adept at self-fashioning than either of them. An object of fixation for the bohemia of the ’50s and ’60s — from Charlie Parker to Leonard Bernstein to Dylan and Ginsberg — he never saw the mainstream success of the fashionable artists who championed him. Moondog (born Louis Hardin in Marysville, Kansas) was attractive to the avant-garde partially because he was unmarketable (though Columbia records briefly tried, releasing two Moondog records in the late ’60s/early-’70s): blind, homeless, stubbornly eccentric and always dressed in his customized translation of Viking attire, he was an outsider in the most fundamental sense. A composer, poet, street performer, and inventor of instruments, he went without all but the most basic comforts and dedicated himself fully to his art.
This is a truly welcome & long-overdue tribute to the legendary Moondog, a devotional love letter to the man Louis Hardin. Once you know about this guy, there's little you can do to shake his melodies and rhythm from your head. There's a remarkable counterpoint in his music between his collection of totally unique home made instruments and an apparently innate sense of harmonics.
This collection comprises some scandalously rare new york eps from the late forties and early fifties with a splash of later material, Moondog should be a lifelong obsession for any person and when you hear his mingus-like horns on the track mr scruff unashamedly ripped wholesale for "get a move on", you should have an inkling how important this guy is. An absolute must, no joke.

Moondog -- The Viking Of Sixth Avenue
Side One / Side Two

1. Theme And Variations

2. Down Is Up

3. Bumbo

4. Big Cat

5. Oo Debut

6. Lament 1 'Bird's Lament'

7. Moondog's Symphony 1

8. Moondog's Symphony 2

9. Rabbit Hop

10. Rimshot

11. Snaketime Rhythm

12. Instrumental Round

13. Double Bass Duo

14. Why Spend The Dark Night With You?

15. All Is Loneliness

16. Snaketime Rhythm

17. Dragon's Teeth

18. Oboe Round

19. Be A Hobo

20. Dog Trot

21. Oasis

22. Avenue Of The Americas

23. 2 W 46th Street

24. Lullaby

25. Fog On The Hudson

26. Utsu

27. On And Off The Beat

28. Chant

29. From One To Nine

30. Improvisation In 4/4

31. Enough About Human Rights!

32. Viking

33. Rimshot

34. Chaconne In G Major

35. Oasis

36. Invocation

myspace

Keith Hudson - Flesh of My Skin Blood of My Blood

Keith Hudson launched his career,

when as a fourteen-year-old he recorded members of The Skatalites
on his Shades Of Hudson rhythm.
after a series of solid-gold productions for Ken Boothe, Delroy Wilson,
John Holt,Big Youth, Dennis Alcapone, U-Roy, Horace Andy,etc.
Classics like Pick A Dub, Brand, Playing It Cool - show his unique ability
for experimentalism was better suited to the LP than the cardinal
7" reggae format.
Keith Hudson left Jamaica in 1974, laden with rhythm tracks laid down at Dynamic Studios in Kingston, and set to work on transforming them at Chalk Farm Studios in London. The resulting sessions gave rise to two LPs - "Torch of Freedom", which was at best patchy, and "Flesh of My Skin", which remains the peak of Keith Hudson's career.
Flesh Of My Skin is one of the most hallowed of all reggae albums which still remains unavailable.Anchored here by Santa Davis and George Fullwood from the Soul Syndicate - alongside musicians like Augustus Pablo, Count Ossie and Leroy Sibbles
Hudson's mood is tormented and dazed, from the initial sound effects,
nyabinghi drumming and raw funk of "Hurting" onwards,
the album continues to surprise throughout.
Outstanding moments include the title track, "Fight Your Revolution",
"Talk Some Sense" (on his own "Class and Subject" rhythm),
and a remarkable cover of Dylan's "I Shall Be Released".
Magnificent, hauntingly unique, unmissable and unforgettable.
Keith Hudson - Flesh of My Skin Blood of My Blood

1. Hunting

2. Flesh of My Skin

3. Blood of My Blood

4. Testing of My Faith

5. Fight Your Revolution

6. Darkest Night

7. Talk Some Sense (Gamma Ray)

8. Treasures of the World

9. My Nocturne

10. I Shall Be Released

11. No Friend of Mine

12. Stabiliser

Keith Hudson myspace

Keith Hudson pages at firecorner

V/A - an introduction to Evil Kitty

Bristol has always had a strong music scene
Evil Kitty is a record label run by Bristol’s
John ‘Dope On Plastic’ Stapleton & has risen from the Bristol club night
of the same name, which bills itself as playing
"psychedlik ffunk, ffuzzed-owt freak-rock, weird gear and
international disturbances from the '60s to the future" which all sounds fairly in keeping
with this far out & sleazy bad trip of a compilation,
which includes the labels first two deleted 7'' releases
V/A - an introduction to Evil Kitty


Fuzz Against Junk -Ballad Of The Hip Death Goddess 7''
This sees Fuzz Against Junk tackling 3 heavyweight covers. The beautiful ‘Love Is Like Strawberries’ taken from an old 60s folk collection, ‘Ballad Of The Hip Death Goddess’ from the debut album by Boston psychedelic warriors, Ultimate Spinach
and finally ‘Birdblack’ by some obscure Liverpool band.
The line up of this band expands and contracts as it feels fit, but on this release were Paul Allen (plays guitar with Bristol krautrock legends The Heads), Billy Fuller (New Acoustics).
Also on guest vocals is Maria Childs who apparently takes her inspiration
from Sandy Denny and Beth Gibbons.

the heavy - That Kind Of Man / Who Needs Sunshine 7''
‘That Kind Of Man’ is Psychedelic, fuzz Guitar, distorted monster worthy of The 13th floor Elevators but the vocals have the sweet soul tones of Curtis Mayfield. Soul music that makes you want to head-bang and make the sign of the devil… surely not? B-side ‘Who Needs The Sunshine?’ is something totally different with the spine-tingling vocals of a rasping Nina simone.

saturation point - 1 /if i can dream( with patrick duff)
saturation point include former members of The Mekons / Blue Aeroplanes/Strangelove. The poetic, purple wine-tinged grace of these drug infused tracks leaves the listener frantically crawling the walls of their dirty post-rock/textured acoustic psychedelia('1'clocks in around 33 minutes).

evil kitty on myspace

the heavy myspace

fuzz against junk myspace

saturation point myspace

GongMaison "Live At The Glastonbury Festival 1989"

Joining the existing nucleus of Allen, Wandana, Malherbe, Maïtra and Williamson were violinist/guitarist Graham Clark and Mother Gong bassist Conrad Henderson. In the meantime, there had been a UK tour, French dates and finally, just after the album was completed, a successful appearance at 1989's Glastonbury festival. "Gong Maison is the new dispensation of the Gong vibration", Daevid Allen said at the time. "It's called Gong Maison partly as a reference to house music, house jazz and so on, but mostly as a reference to the sorts of houses we find ourselves living in, which are like lunatic asylums of hermits who are trying to live together. In other words, houses with all these rooms with different trips going on in each room - the house of Gong".

It was a baking hot day, as hot as it gets in England. The tracks and byways of the fields that made up the multi-coloured, 14 hour-a-day whirligig that is Glastonbury Festival, had been turned to fine dust beneath thousands of bare feet. After a day of alternately basking in and hiding from the heat of the sun, bumping into friends, catching snatches of every imaginable kind of music, browsing the stalls overflowing with things you never knew existed, let alone wanted, people started to gather for Gong. People who had heard on the grapevine that a Gong band would be playing - and those who were just born lucky - made their way to the almost top field of the green valley that held the Festival.

The stage was the highest (in every sense) of the whole gathering. Most performers would have had a problem reaching down to their audience, but as the opening sound of the Earth Drone Didgeridoos began to a dimmed and seemingly empty stage, there were visionaries in the packed tent who were seeing Rainbow Serpents coming out of the speakers. This was clearly to be no ordinary event...

A ripple of excitement greeted the slender presence of Wandana, Bloomdido Bad de Grass, Harry & Shamal materialized out of thin air. Then to the undisguised joy of all, a pointy-hatted black-robed figure floated forward -was he walking or was he levitating?

And the tent now contained four times the number it had been designed to hold.
Who knows how long we had been living on the distant green planet of Gong, when with little warning we were tumbled out of our timeless reverie... by what... a telephone conversation with God? Uh huh- very odd, but it did its job.Delayed laughter hung in disbelief.Until, that is, at the end of a sparkling display of tablas, opening our hears and filling us with the passion for life we were all there to celebrate. The music now became for me a glorious unfolding landscape,i can only say that I came back to find myself entwined in a warm embrace with a knot of chanting swaying bodies singing:

"You are I and I am you...."
"Listen listen listen to my hearts song... hari human you man woman you!"

Outside the tent it was twilight, and a huge orange full moon was rising over the silver threads of several thousand camp fires. I wished I could have lived there for ever...

GongMaison - "Live At The Glastonbury Festival 1989"

opening invocation
Deva invocations earth/fire/water/air
direct line to god
bellyfull of telephone
titicaca/changing woman
people poem
negotiate/world peace
we circle around
flying tea dance
you are I & I am you
heartsong

buy gongmaison debut here

daevid allen webpage

planetgong

live footage & a cool write at magicriver blogspot

Gong-You DON'T Have To Give Up Dope. Here

loads of rare & free daevid allen /gong recordings here
new york gong- about time here