Posted by Hugh on Nov 4 2008 to Folk
Since it’s Election Day here in America, make sure to vote; after all, a democracy’s pretty pointless if people don’t vote. Now that I’ve discussed all the politics I plan to discuss on here for the next four years, let me introduce you to some actual music. Christopher Denny is a folk singer with a sound (and especially a voice) that harkens back to the folk days of yore, and pays no heed to this modern anti-folk claptrap. Which isn’t to say that anti-folk is an inferior genre, but it’s nice to hear music that values where it came from. It is equally nice to hear folk music with powerful vocals. My main qualm with Gypsy Into A Carpenter is that while his vocals are undeniably strong, they’re also quite meandering. Time does not have any such issues, and as such is one of my favorite songs on his debut album, Age Old Hunger. Regardless, my criticisms may be soon forgotten, but this music will not.
Downloads
From Age Old Hunger
Time – (MP3, 4.6 MB)
Gypsy Into A Carpenter – (MP3, 3.6 MB)
Posted by Ant on Nov 2 2008 to Country
If Hugh is the proverbial Master of laziness, then I would surely have to be the Apprentice. I do have an excuse though, so I guess that makes it ok. R-right? Furthermore, I don’t know if anyone actually listened to the music I posted, but hey, onwards we march.
Today I have for your delectable listening pleasure the dulcet tones of Ms. Zooey Deschanel, a.k.a. the She in She & Him. Having seen her in the totally awesome “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, the news that she also sang was enough to pluck away at my heartstrings! Or something like that. Zooey is joined by M. Ward (whom we haven’t written about for some reason!) to provide us all with some lovely folkey, country tunes. There’s even a Beatles cover in this album (I Should’ve Known Better), and it’s pretty darn good.
Oddly enough, I even have media for you all, and it’s not some dodgy Flash thing either. It’s an actual MP3! Along with this, I would go ahead and check out the aforementioned cover, as well as This is Not a Test, all of which can be found on their debut album, Volume One.
Downloads
From Volume One:
Why Do You Let Me Stay Here? – MP3, 5.7MB
Posted by Hugh on Oct 29 2008 to Cabaret
Once again, I am redefining the very, erm, definition of lazy. It’s not that there’s a lack of excellent music, either. Perhaps now that I’ve joined MOG, a music blog network, I will be more regularly shamed into writing something. Amber Lee & The Anomalies has what she terms “neo-folkloric accordion charm,” and I am not about to disagree! Her debut album, Estuaries, is indeed full of such charm. Songs like Not As The Crow Flies and It’s Me stretches the limit of upbeat accordion music. That does not mean it’s always happy music, of course; the music on Only The Girls reminds me of the darker moments of The Tiger Lillies’ album The Sea, and well, you just can’t expect songs called Whaler’s Wife or Beautiful Decay to be too cheerful. Her vocals keep anything from getting too dark, though. Listen to her song Time Master below, it’s the opening track of her album and one of my favorites.
From Estuaries
Time Master – (MP3, 3 MB)
Posted by Hugh on Sep 17 2008 to Folk
I haven’t posted anything in quite some time, but after receiving an inquiry about whether I still blogged at all, it seemed I was taking it too far. It doesn’t help that I deleted all my music bookmarks without intending to, but there’s still a few things I’d be happy to write about. The first of these is Sharon Van Etten, who is one of those relaxing folk musicians that manage to get me very much engaged in their music. When she mailed me a CD a while back, she thoughtfully included a page of her lyrics so I could read along while listening to the music. If she hadn’t, I might not have realized just how much I liked her lyrics, as she’s sometimes hard to understand due to her hauntingly intense vocals.
If my computer wasn’t such a bucket of crap, I’d have ripped the CD and uploaded a few choice tracks. Since my computer is such a bucket of crap, I hope you don’t mind going to her Myspace and listening to her there. Of the songs she’s got up, I recommend I Wish I Knew, Have You Seen, and Damn Right. If her folk chops weren’t enough to make me fall in love with her, the fact that she’s releasing an album on Language Of Stone next year certainly does. I can’t wait!
Posted by Hugh on Jun 24 2008 to Folk
Orion Rigel Dommisse is my favorite musician on Greg Weeks’ label Language Of Stone. She isn’t as psychedelic as most of the artists on that label, though her music has too wide a variety of instrumentation to be considered traditional folk. It’s not so much instrumentation that it overwhelms you, but more than enough to keep you wholly interested. She had quite a folk all-star line-up on her album as well: Greg Weeks on synths and guitar, Margie Wienk of Fern Knight on cello, and Jesse Sparhawk on the harp. You don’t get such people playing on your album unless you’re pretty damn talented, which Orion is. She has a slightly odd voice, though one that’s still very pleasant. Her lyrics are considerably darker than most you’ll find in folk music these days, which is a delight for the more morbid among us.
While three of the songs on her album What I Want From You Is Sweet have “death” in their titles and one has “suicide” in its title, the songs are generally far from depressing. They are certainly downbeat, but not depressing. Her song Drink Yourself (To Death) has an amazing chorus in “Drink yourself to death so I don’t have / have to see you again / I know, my love, it sounds cruel / but I’m not the one killing you.” Alright, that’s a little depressing, but it’s sung so beautifully that I barely notice. Her song Fake Yer Death is almost amusing as it goes into detail about, well, you know. To end on a more positive note, she’s writing songs for her next album which I suspect will be just as great as her first.
From What I Want From You Is Sweet
Fake Yer Death – (MP3, 4.7 MB)
Posted by Hugh on Jun 20 2008 to Folk
Ex Reverie is a psych-folk band that you might remember from when I talked about their EP, Phronesis, a while back. They released their full-length debut earlier this year, The Door Into Summer. The song that their label offers up, Dawn Comes For Us All, is easily my favorite song of the year. It’s hard for me to do anything else while listening to it. With its deep bass, excellent lyrics, and perfect singing, it is impossible to not be captivated. While I am not a fan of outros, this song has an excellent one, very much inspired by Greg Weeks. That isn’t too much of a surprise, as he played on the album, which was released on his label, Language Of Stone. You can expect to hear me gushing about more of the artists on that label in the near future.
Downloads
From The Door Into Summer
Dawn Comes For Us All – (MP3, 9.3 MB)
Posted by Hugh on Mar 2 2008 to Folk
Continuing the series of good bands that write me, it’s time to write about a lovely UK band, Goodtimes Goodtimes (indeed it is good times, haven’t had some folk on here in a while!) While they are not the sleepy folk that I’m usually pushing on the unwilling public like a strict father, that is probably a good thing. Songs like Sea Shanty and Kids remind me a lot of Gill Landry, at least vocally, and that is a good thing. Then there are songs like Desire which are just damned amazing, and the vocals remind me a little of the Chili Peppers, which probably is not good for a band’s folk cred, but the song is good no matter what any nay-saying clowns might think. Yeah, I’m looking at you, nay-saying clowns…
Downloads
From Glue
Desire – (MP3, 3.6 MB)
Sea Shanty – (MP3, 3.6 MB)
Kids – (MP3, 5.2 MB)
Posted by Doug on Oct 17 2007 to Folk
Before the World/Inferno destroyed Cha Chas in Coney Island, the opening band managed to play a full set. They were Jollyship the Whiz-Bang, and they’ve recently become pretty tied in with Inferno, being that their keyboardist / accordionist is now taking over a lot of Franz’s duties. That night was my first time seeing them, and as I had heard quite a lot about them, I was quite excited to be there — and I was not let down.
They play a sort of pirate-rock, but of a different sort than, say, Mutiny. Less gravelly voices, and more.. puppetry? Unfortunately, they didn’t have the puppets out that night, but the fun was not diminished. Starting out with Party Island, with its chorus of, ‘We’re at the party island! Yo-ho-ho!’ it was hard not to enjoy myself. Bands should never take themselves too seriously anyway.
The recordings on their first full-length, Songs to Drown By don’t seem to really capture the same energy for the most part, which isn’t to say it’s a bad CD — perhaps if I had heard it before the live versions, I would feel differently. However, their more recent EP is perfect, each song captured as well as I could hope for.
Downloads
From Songs to Drown By
Kill It If It Don’t Got Feet – (MP3, 4.2 MB)
Party Island – (MP3, 4.9 MB)
Walk With You – (MP3, 4.6 MB)
From Curse of the Ancient Legend
Bone of My Brain – (MP3, 6.2 MB)
The Witch Song – (MP3, 6.6 MB)
Posted by Hugh on Jul 18 2007 to Folk
When you have a collapsed lung like I do, you don’t really want to listen to exciting music that makes you want to dance around like a drunk hooligan. You want to listen to stuff that you can enjoy while you’re just sitting there, which basically limits your choices to downtempo and folk. Since I tend to redefine “downtempo” as “boring,” I’ll take the folk anytime. Besides, it is no secret that I have a thing for female folk singers, especially the ones who have superb singing abilities. The most recent singer I have found fitting this bill is Lauren Shera, a young lass out of California. I find it pretty incredible that she’s so young and still so talented of a singer, and she’s no slacker when it comes to writing songs, either. When she sings “In the graveyard by the ocean is where I laid my baby down, six feet undergroooooouuuund” on Bloodlust, it is all but impossible to not fall in love with her. While it would seem the general populace is clueless about her, other musicians are not; she’s opened for Kristin Hersh, Vashti Bunyan, and The Ditty Bops, among others.
Downloads
From In My Bones
Hands Of A Pirate – (MP3, 4.1 MB)
Bloodlust – (MP3, 5.4 MB)
Posted by Hugh on May 21 2007 to Folk
I am becoming quite the slouch on updates lately, so I’ll have to do another post right after this one and make this month’s mix incomparably huge. Because remember kids, if you can’t have quality, then go for quantity! But enough about my shortcomings.
Chris Bathgate isn’t always your typical folk musician, which is fortunate, as otherwise he would probably be quite boring. While Buffalo Girl isn’t going to win any awards for jauntiness, it’s got enough instrumentation to keep you awake. I Know How You Are Going To Die Tonight won’t win any awards for jauntiness either, but it’s got some two-note cabaret piano action (and horns) to make it seem like so much more. His voice kind of reminds me of Jason Molina’s (of Songs: Ohia and Magnolia Electric Co. fame), but not quite. He’s got a new, more mellow, album out too; you can read about that over at songs: illinois.
Downloads
From Throatsleep
Buffalo Girl – (MP3, 4 MB)
I Know How You Are Going To Die Tonight – (MP3, 4.6 MB)
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