Folk /
Alan Lomax In Haiti
Harte Recordings, together with the estate of Alan Lomax, and in collaboration with The Library Of Congress and the The Association for Cultural Equity, present Alan Lomax In Haiti -- a chronicle of Lomax's 1936 Haitian recording expedition for the Library. This 10-CD box-set, in the modern tradition of those lovingly created by Revenant and Dust-To-Digital, is curated from over 50 hours of field recordings by the pre-eminent Haitian scholar, Gage Averill. Besides the CDs, the set contain…
Give It Up
Initial copies come with a bonus full-length CD album, an incredible soundtrack to Donald Prokop's film 'Gone' specially composed by Zelienople - and trust us when we say it's worthy of the cost of admission in itself* This unbelievable album from Chicago's Zelienople evokes the spirit of some of the most treasured music we've come to know over the years, fusing in elements of Talk Talk at their most washed-out, early Bark Psychosis and the narcotic sweeps of Slowdive fused in with the smoky men…
Under Stellar Stream
For his latest album, UK avant-folk maverick Richard Youngs seems to be converging on some of the most assured and firm-footed vocal work of his career to date, fashioning rock-solid songs from typically leftfield instrumental tactics. On 'Broke Up By Night', Youngs sounds like a gnarled old folkie of almost Ewan MacColl proportions, albeit accompanied by organ drone and wispy electronics. It's a rather magical, mantra-like cadence he elicits, and the album springboards nicely from this point. S…
Art of the Theremin
Imagine a virtuoso soprano with an unlimited upper range. Imagine a violin with the lower range of a cello. Imagine an instrument that allows for every nuance, for every slight embellishment, for every dynamic flourishment imaginiable. This album consists of plain piano and plain theramin - no other orchestration. The Theramin, as proved by Clara Rockmore, is capable of soaring song, of delicate melody, of pure expression. Rockmore's performance is a pure joy and a testament to the versatility o…
The Wyrd Meme
A quartet of new songs from the ever-wonderful Alasdair Roberts - a follow-up to his long-player Spoils, released earlier in the year. The tone is carefully poised between staunchly traditional folk values and more modern arrangement styles; though Roberts' fingerpicking and unaffected delivery are faithful to the genre's purist leanings, there's nothing conventional about the songs' segmented structures or the often very minimalist arrangements. It's quite strange to hear such a seemingly old-f…
Spoils
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…
No Earthly Man
Updating canonical Scottish folk tunes is a rather unfashionable niche, placing these songs within the context of modern/alternative rock is an even tougher chore, but it's one that Scottish neo-traditionalist Alasdair Roberts approaches with pluck and somber intensity. Previously with the band Appendix Out, No Earthly Man is Roberts' third album as a solo artist and it is undoubtedly his most difficult to approach. His previous album, Farewell Sorrow, was a collection of joyful, filigreed songs…
The Hour Is Now
An excellent compilation of beautiful early 70s folk tunes from three LPs that that legendary acid-folk hippy-goddess Collie Ryan recorded in 1973, pretty much in Fahey/Basho vein
Cherlokalate
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.
America
Originally released in 1971, this is one of the artistic high points of his career. And yet, for nearly 30 years it was not heard in its entirety, as what was originally intended as a double album was pared down to a single LP. Now, thanks to 4 Men With Beards, the complete double album is available on vinyl for the first time
Distillation
As one cog in the leaderless wheel known as the No-Neck Blues Band, Dave Shuford makes music so thoroughly unplanned that even he and his bandmates can't predict what it will sound like. NNCK don't just improvise, they don't even discuss what they're going to play, traversing many styles and moods with no safety net save the one that emerges from their collective creativity. Compared to NNCK's free-form tightrope-walk, Shuford's side project D. Charles Speer and the Helix can sound downright ris…
Empty The Sun
BOOK + CD: A novel by Joseph Mattson featuring music by SIX ORGANS OF ADMITTANCE. Available in First Trade Paperback Edition with CD soundtrack and as a limited edition vinyl LP soundtrack with Large Format Book. “Here I was, doing ninety on the Santa Monica Freeway with a quart of whiskey shoved into my crotch and my dead neighbor in the trunk. It had come time to leave Los Angeles.” Thus begins the pre-apocalyptic, cross-country race with death to bury the murdered past in Joseph Mattson’s Emp…
Still Some Light
legendary Bill Fay released two brilliant but poor-selling albums between 1967 and 1971 before disappearing from the public eye. He spent much of the following decade writing, rehearsing, and occasionally performing--all with no contract or record company support. In recent years, reissues of his now-sought-after original albums along with a pair of releases containing previously unreleased material have renewed interest in the English artist. Coptic Cat is pleased to announce the release of Fay…
Memories from the age of the Dragon
Restocked - AWESOME!! Lavishly packaged in a heavy textured cover, red vinyl, troglosound art, 3 different inner sleeves (gold/red/green), "Memories from the age of the Dragon" with david vanzan percussion, voice, bow harp, bass, anologue electronics virginia genta soprano sax, ocarina, flutes, marimba box, bells maurizio abate kalimba, zither, hurdy gurdy, tape delay
Mortika: Recordings From A Greek Underworld
Absolutely incredible boxed 2LP package from the ever-wonderful Mississippi label bringing together some choice Greek Rembetica - do not miss! Always keeping listeners on their toes, Mississippi Records takes a sharp derivé into the world of underground Greek folk music, featuring 21 fascinating songs about drugs, sex, crime, poverty and heartbreak compiled by Tony Klein. Sometimes called 'Rembetica' and/or 'Greek Oriental Music', this music was the idiomatic folk outlet of Greek musicians in th…
Stone Academy
The latest addition to the fast-growing Digitalis catalogue comes from Zelienople, a band from Chicago who have a certain knack of making that other-worldly folk ambience we've all grown so addicted to sound totally singular and incredibly beautiful. Maybe it's because they aren't afraid of occasionally breaching into the odd pop structure or two that 'Stone Academy' is so inviting, in fact if you hear it at a distance you might even mistake it for a decomposed cassette recording of an old Pavem…
Simulacrum
On his third outing, Jozef Van Wissem, with his ten-course Renaissance lute (aka retrograde lute), employs not only his notion of using palindromes and backwards reading of music for the instrument, but also brings electronics and field recordings into the discussion. Van Wissem applies mirror images in compositions for solo lute. He inserts a microphone into the body of his lute, records the sounds inside (known as "wolftones"), and then electronically alters them by sampling, cutting, and past…
O True Believers
When UK-native James Blackshaw plays his 12-string, something spiritual takes place. This unassuming 23 year-old is transformed into a guitar god whose name belongs alongside the likes of Jack Rose, Steffen Basho-Junghans, and Glenn Jones. Making instrumental, solo, acoustic music that remains consistently interesting and moving is a difficult task. Yet, time after time, Blackshaw hits out of the park, constantly breaking boundaries in what could be conceived as a somewhat limited medium. O True…
A Year In The Kingdom
Since Joshua Tillman had his profile raised by association with Seattle folk favourites Fleet Foxes, whose drumsticks he wields, he hasn't exactly been making an attention-seeking racket in his solo career. In contrast to Fleet Foxes' dawn-chorus harmonising, Tillman favours a spare style, and his sixth solo album may be the year's most subdued record. "I possess a taste for blood. I have numbered mankind's days," the 28-year-old murmurs on "There Is no Good in Me", throwing in a reference to fi…
Ex Patris
The title Ex Patris (from the fathers) plays on the idiomatic baroque lute compositions presented here which emulate the classical repertoire. It also refers to this almost forgotten instrument, which was passed on by the fathers. The aim is to bring back and liberate the lute. The four compositions on Ex Patris form a circular narrative of interlocking repetitive melodic series. The follow up to Important release “ It is all that is made” kicks off with the pro apocalyptic track “The Day is Com…