Mountainhood - 2009 - White Banquet- Live at the Story Chapter 1

Genre: Freak Folk Lo-finess

How many Mountainhood releases scatched the surface this year?

3? 4? 5? Don't know - just to make this listing complete here's an live recording.

fragil Lo-Fi goodness and his frail voice as on the other recordings...

number of glitches can be heard throughout the songs. These glitches are not technology-related but they were produced organically in real-time at the live performance when the songs got intense and [the songwriter] passed into a mild trance, to fade out for a minute, then falling forward heavily, caught [his] guitar strings upon the mic." (insert)

Try it - Buy it - MicePays

Almaden - 2007 - The Dream Continues in 1,000,000 Roads as the Journeyman Slumbers to be Awoken by the Berries of Air and Forest, a Dawn Pre-Imagined

Genre: Psych Folk
Label: 267 lattajjaa (FI)

Ok, the full album title is: The Dream Continues in 1,000,000 Roads as the Journeyman Slumbers to be Awoken by the Berries of Air and Forest, a Dawn Pre-Imagined and so Owned in Footstep and Deed as Our Lovely Sojourner of Unabysmal Light Sojourns 4th into Willowy and Totally Purple Dawning, Day is Upon r Hero and the Golden Rd. of Infinitudinous Blessedhood get it :)? Who is Almaden? Yes you may know it - so if you like his current project you will like this too. This is Lo-Fi as it Low Fidelity can be. Tape hiss, Psych Folk and drone.

Find the lyrics and much more on the labelwebsite

Try it - MicePays

Alex Fergusson - 2006 - The Castle

Genre: Folk, Pop, Psych, Post Punk
Label: Eis & Licht (DE)

Here's the follower of the previous post. Alex Fergusson with his latest record. Very different styles are here. Opens with a sinister classic piece followed by the great post punk track "Dark Angel" (this seems to be the connection to his former group Alternative TV). Then "Ways of Pleasure" and "Hope" sounds like a pure Velvet Underground Jam, "Odyssey" is an instrumental with backward sounds in vein of his Psychic TV times. And beween these remarkable songs pretty nice folk songs - sometimes with female vocals.

It's a bit strange that he release on these gothic/industrial labels, but that's maybe the connection - the music has nothing to do with that neo european attitudes and shit.

Tracklisting

1. The Castle - Entrance
2. Dark Angel
3. Bar Noir
4. Ways Of Pleasure
5. Solitude
6. Hope
7. Odyssey
8. Twilight
9. Daybreak
10. Mirror
11. Let The Sorrow Go
12. The Castle - Exit

Try it - Website

Cone - 2008 - Massimo

Genre: Psych Folk, Instrumental, Field Recording
Label: fieldmuzick (DE)

If you like Six Organs of Admittance...

Second EP by the dutch artist Cone / Hermann Blaupunkt. A guy who is running Casa Cassetta an analogue recording studio as well.

This EP mixes field recordings (on portable tape recorders) from Sicily with psychy folk guitar meanders. Very nice soundtrack like a surreal trip on the beach in the evening.

Check it out!

Repetitive sounds played on the six strings, while adding nice field recordings from a theatre, a train and the beach. The field recordings play a small role here, but they certainly add a nice element to the bittersweet guitar melodies. (Vital Weekly)

Tracklisting

1. Bus Stop Wake Up
2. Fire On The Mountain
3. Massimo's Secret Room
4. On the Beach
5. Summer Storm (Bonus)

Try it - Buy it - MicePays

Woods - 2009 - sunlite 7" - complete disco [update]

This is just a collection of links, because I've got no time to write more right now ;-)

Here is the complete Woods discography, hope you enjoy and buy their records!

• New 7" Sunlite on Captured Tracks
• Songs of Shame
• Ram 7"
• How To Survive In/In The Woods
• Some Shame (Tour Tape 2008 - much rawer (better) version of Songs of Shame (2009)
• At Rear House
• Woods Family Creeps
• From the Horn cs [Fuck It Tapes, 2008]
• VA - 2006 - Mythos Folkways Vol. No. 2: Pre-American Lands (Raccoo-oo-oon & Woods Split) LP 
• Great Liveset here

all from http://aerophonesonaeroplanes.blogspot.com

http://somepeopleridethewave.wordpress.com/2009/02/18/woods/

http://community.livejournal.com/psych_folk/505755.html#cutid1

Volcano The Bear - 1999 - The Inhazer Decline

Genre: Avantgarde, Free Folk
Label: United Diaries (UK)

Similar Artists: Nurse With Wound

Krautrock, Freeform Folk, Freaky, Weird...

When Nurse With Wound's "A Chance Meeting on a Dissecting Table.." was first released in 1979, the response was one of bafflement. Volcano The Bear's first album for NWW's United Dairies is just as baffling. Ostensibly following the 70s art-rock damage of Faust (especially 'Tapes') and the willfull eccentricity of The Shadow Ring, Volcano The Bear (Byram refuses to call them anything but BJ and the Bear) plods through disjointed percussive riffs with alien droning, incongruous guitar work, and a crystal clear production which wouldn't be out of place on Too Pure. It's not hard to see why Steven Stapleton sought this group out after their Pickled Egg debut for a United Dairies release. 

Tracklisting

1. Planetary Bethlehem 
   
2. Quarterstone 
   
3. Musima 
   
4. Bowl 
   
5. Ruth Da Moose 
   
6. Worse With Noun 
   
7. Giant Angels 
   
8. Vast Blanket 
   
9. Mung 
   
10. The Queen's Teeth 
    
11. Here Are The Bounds 
    
12. Planetary Bethlehem 
    

Try it - Buy it - MicePays

The Ivytree - 2004 - Winged Leaves

Genre: Psych Folk
Label: Cat supplate

Similar Artists: Skygreen Leopards, Thuja

Yeah again Glenn Donaldson - similar to Birdtree record, so check it!

Tracklisting

1. Flood
   
2. The Book Of Job
   
3. Winged Leaves 
   
4. Winged Leaves (Reprise)
   
5. Emerald Green, Peacock Blue
   
6. Longleaf Pines
   
7. Churches
   
8. Wind-Bent Grass
   
9. Think On These Things
   
10. She Is The Swallow
    
11. Clay Tablets
    
12. The Old Kingdom 

Try it - MicePays

The Birdtree - 2002 - Orchards & Caravans

Genre: Psych Folk, Drone, Psychedelic
Label: Last Visible Dog (US)

Similar Artists: Skygreen Leopards, Thuja

Well, here again a great piece of work by Glenn Donaldson. If you read this blog, you stumbled often about his music (the last was this Mirza record). His most well known project are The Skygreen Leopards, but he did a lot of work as the one of the heads behind the Jewelled Antler Collective. You can get an overview about that collective with it's own soundcosmos here and here.

This record is a mixture of Glenn Donaldsons music he do with The Skygreen Leopards, more that song oriented folky stuff and the freeform drone-work of Thuja. If you like their work, check it!

The Jewelled Antler Collective put out a lot recordings, mostly on CD-r, so they are rare - if you like to share some of this stuff, please post comments. Thank you!

Tracklisting

1. White Sundials Faced The Sun 
   
2. Pillar Of Clouds 
   
3. Animals Of The Summit 
   
4. Red Midnight Raven 
   
5. The Marsh 
   
6. Black Rainbows, Part 1 & 2 
   
7. Everyone Of Us A New Leaf 
   
8. Mary Ann 
   
9. Scorpions & Lions 
   
10. The Bluish Vapor Of Tall Eucalyptus Trees 
    
11. The Lost Sun 
    
12. Raven Returns/The Uppermost Forest 
    
13. Sleeper Under A Tree 
    
14. Leaffish 

Try it - MicePays

Thuja - Ghost Plants (2002)

Genre: Acoustic Freeform Psych Folk Drone
Label: Emperor Jones (US)

Similar Artists: Pete Wright, The North Sea, Skygreen Leopards

Thuja released a lot records, all with untitled tracks and all of them with a beautiful organic athmosphere. For me it sounds always like a recording in a greenhouse.

Improvised dreamscapes with weird freeform freak outs and mantras. This is not rockmusic! Oh, and Glenn Donaldson of The Skygreen Leopards is part of that collective. Wonderful!

Ghost Plants is as savory and involved as improv music gets. It isn’t a sound effects record but should be. There are piano, guitar, percussion, electronics and other shit mingling freely but in a cohesive way.

Tracklisting

• 13 untitled tracks
  

Try it - Buy it - last.fm

A Broken Consort - The Shape Leaves (2006); Crow Autumn (2007)

Genre: Drone, Freefrom, Psych Folk
Label: Sustain-Release (UK)

Similar Artists: Thuja, TwinSisterMoon, Nature Snow Buildings

Shimmering freeform mantras on violin and sparkling guitar pickings. Very organic sound which make the time stands still. Checkout the labelwebsite to see the full beauty of his releases.

The music consists of long-spun acoustic soundscapes - drones and melodic repetitions, but with a great depth of sound. Most prominent are guitars, percussion, and various other bowed and strummed strings. The result is at the same time familiar, rooted in the earth, but also far from everyday experience. A wonderful musical depiction of the mystic depths contained in natural landscapes with only a hint of cultivation.

Tracklisting - The Shape Leaves

1. In The Hanged Air 
   
2. A Momentary Sun 
   
3. And All Their Silver & Gold 
   
4. For Nothing 
   
5. The Longing Day 
   
6. Untitled
   

Try it

Tracklisting - Crow Autumn

1. Crow Autumn 

Try it

Buy it - MicePays

The North Sea - Exquisite Idols (2007)

Genre: Psych Folk
Label: Type (UK)

Similar Artists: Metthew de Gennaro

The first 'proper' album from free-folk's international man of mystery Brad Rose. The Tulsa resident managed to peel himself away from Ugly Betty re-runs for long enough to record eight skewed slices of sing-along outsider pop. Get slightly drunk, and enjoy...

Exquisite Idols hovers somewhere between drone, folk, free improv and a sort of shattered Americana. On the release, he mixes field recordings, guitars, occasional vocals, banjo, and loads of clanging percussion and hazy washes. The space it inhabits is somewhere between the scratchy under-the-bridge folk of a group like The Blithe Sons and the reverb-drenched Songs Of Green Pheasant. Most of all, though, it doesn't take the paths that you quite expect, playing out with a series of passages that feel organic and loose, as if written deep in the woods somewhere.

See this post for another The North Sea album.

Tracklisting

1. Eternal Birds 
   
2. Guiwenneth Of The Green Grass 
   
3. We Conquered The Golden Age 
   
4. Take It From Me Brother Moses 
   
5. Cover Me With Knives 
   
6. Children Of The Ashes 
   
7. And Then The Solstice Disappeared 
   
8. Feather-Cloaked Silver Priestess 

Try it - Buy it - MicePays

Curse Ov Dialect - Wooden Tongues (2006)

Genre: Hip-Hop, Psychedelic, World Music, Folk
Label: Mush Records

Similar Artists: Beastie Boys

This is one of the greatest Hip Hop acts for me. The members (Maltese, Macedonian, Anglo-Indian, Maori, and Pakistani) living in Australia and producing a sort of Hip Hop I've never heard. The raps are similar to the Beastie Boys and the music is a wild mixture of eastern music, noises, classical music, blues and much more, backed by dopest beats you've ever heard ;). And if you think this sounds boring, no! their sampling work is absolutly amazing. It's psychedelic and politic at the same time. Check the video below, theire myspace and get this record.

For your listening pleasure, i've included the orginal track of turkish psych folk singer Selda, which is used as loop in Take me to the Arab World.

Tracklisting

1. Renegades 
   
2. Saturday Night 
   
3. Word Up Forever 
   
4. Forget 
   
5. Jokes On Me 
   
6. Take Me To The Arab World 
   
7. The Potato Master 
   
8. Bird Cage Alert 
   
9. Bury Me Slowly 
   
10. Broken Feathers 
    
11. Mr. Miscellaneous 
    
12. Sticks And Stones 
    
13. Ropungan 
    
14. Strawberries 
    
15. Stop Sarisis 
    
16. Letter To Athens 
    
17. Previous Desicion

Try it - Buy it - MicePays

Birdengine - I Fed Thee Rabbit Water (2007)

Genre: Psych Folk, Acoustic
Label: Drift Records (UK)

Dark Folk songs, best listen at night.

Lawry Joseph Tilbury plays a nylon string guitar and accompanies himself singing the horrors in his mind. Killing dogs, sticks for arms, black snow, giant birds, dancing bears and kings trapped in jars all get a mention in Lawrys’ frightening but beautiful music.

Tracklisting

1. Heads Off Dogs 
   
2. Alone With The Beast Folk 
   
3. The Evil Twin 
   
4. Fare Thee Well Feral Child 
   
5. Dead Mermaid 
   
6. You Gave Birth To A Horse 
   
7. Buried In The Black Snow 
   

Try it - Buy it - MicePays

Donovan Quinn - October Lanterns (2007)

Genre: Freak Folk, Psych Folk
Label: Label: Soft Abuse (Puissant Series)(US)

The other half of Skygreen Leopards with a real similar sound. So if you love them, try it!

Donovan Quinn recorded October Lanterns late in the evenings of 2002 and 2003, while living on a horse ranch in Walnut Creek, California. It's a home recorded DIY affair of the bedroom school, a bit off-key and folky, and calls to mind the recorded works of Treacy and Kusworth at their most dour. The mood is dark, maybe even morbid, but has a sweetness to it that betrays both a sense of humor and nostalgia beneath the surface.

Tracklisting

1. October Lanterns 
   
2. Blackbird Headchamber 
   
3. The Guttering Flame 
   
4. At The Tent Revival 
   
5. One Thousand Matchsticks 
   
6. Saw A Ghost On The Water 
   
7. The Crooked Smile Of A Jack-O-Lantern 
   
8. Along The Hollies 
   
9. Miner 
   
10. October Lanterns 

Try it - Buy it - MicePays

Giant Skyflower Band - Blood Of The Sunworm (2007)

Genre: Freak Folk, Psych Folk
Label: Soft Abuse (US)

Similar Artists: Skygreen Leopards

The Press release says all... Glenn Donaldson by the Skygreen Leopards + lots of Sitar Sound:

...Giant Skyflower Band, an exotic, flowery and crumbling new recording project with nods to fruity new age, psych, prog, folk, and pop songwriting.  Donaldson quickly invited multi-instrumentalist Shayde Sartin to “smoke marijuana & make up strange pop songs, ” and thus the band was born. With Gong's seminal Magick Brother as a starting point and a sitar close at hand, the duo created a dark, peregrine pop transmission from their shoddy analog recording studio in San Francisco.  Blood of the Sunworm is the duo’s debut offering.

Giant Skyflower’s purpose is to examine in detail the idiom of Bummer Psych; the strain of damaged Anglo-pop music pioneered by Syd Barrett that arguably reached its apex with The Television Personalities’ Painted Word LP in the mid-80’s, but found new life in Japan via the genius of Tori Kudo and like-minded acts such as Nagisa Ni te and Tenniscoats. Indeed, Blood of the Sunworm consists of depressing pop songs and damaged instrumentals - teeth bared and falling apart as they are cobbled together – on a hazy, cryptic journey through a busted kaleidoscope, behind a dusty mirror & up through the rafters.

Tracklisting

1. Oh Mary Green 
   
2. Starbeams 
   
3. Time Won't Sing A Song For You 
   
4. Feast Of Blood 
   
5. Rainbows And Dreams (With Worms Singing) 
   
6. Bitter Wild Rabbit/Builds The Bone 
   
7. All Of Us (You And Me) 
   
8. Lice Of Rainbows 
   
9. The Arcangel (Hurray For The Beast) 
   
10. Meditations On Christ And The Magi 
    

Try it - Buy it - MicePays

The Skygreen Leopards - Jehovah Surrender (2005)

Genre: Freak Folk, Psych Rock
Label: jagjaguwar (US)

My favorite Skygreen Leopards record. This is special because of the raw sounding Psych Rock they played here. Fuzzy bass, the strange singing voice by Glenn Donaldson and Donovan Quinn and drums that sounds always delayed from the rest of music and a bit awkward but very well played.

Electric guitar howl like a farmers hound, fuzz bass stampedes, and drums trot and gallop like the finest of wild horses. Donovan & Glenn write: "Not long ago the band was visiting a friend in Port Costa, CA. After sharing a bottle of wine and enjoying the moonlight dances of his two daughters--the friend wanted to share a secret. He pulled an oversized key out of his overalls pocket and lead them out back to his shed. In the shed was an ancient drumset and a cobwebby electric guitar. The man said he knew Arlo Guthrie and that he was once in a band called "Hobo Splendor". Well thats all it took for the Skygreen's to lose their hearts and heads to a new muse. We played "All the Young Dudes" and "Hobo Jesus Blues" all night long and the daughters danced ballroom. This e.p. is inspired by the man from Hobo Splendor--get better my friend!"

Tracklisting

1. Jehovah I Surrender 
   
2. Julie-Anne, Patron Of Thieves 
   
3. Play For The Spring 
   
4. Apparition Of Suns (A.K.A. The Ferryman's Long Arms) 
   
5. Let The Lion Be Swallowed By A Dove 
   
6. I Was A Thief 
   

Try it - Buy it - MicePays

Gowns - Red State (2007)

Genre: Shoegaze, Noise-Folk, Indie
Label: Cardboard Records

Red State, though, is an album with a particular sound, like the sun-bleached Polaroids of one’s family, documenting personal exercises in communal cultural contexts. Melodies lie obscured under a matte of cracked electronics, trains of thought dissipate before reaching a resolution, and thick streams of static and noise disturb states of ghostly beauty. Imperfections are purposeful and frequent, and the music derails from its predetermined path with consistency.

Tracklisting

1. Fargo 
   
2. Rope 
   
3. Fake July 
   
4. White Like Heaven 
   
5. Lie Down 
   
6. Clawless 
   
7. Mercy 
   
8. Subside 
   
9. Advice 
   
10. Cherylee 

Try it - Buy it - MicePays

The North Sea - Underneath The Jesus Tree (2006)

Genre: Psych Folk
Label: Barl Fire Recordings

Similar Artists: Metthew de Gennaro

Wonderful shining athmosphere, reverbed acoustic guitar and lots of birds.

I can only have respect for the man; he's made the record he wanted to make, without stopping to care that he'll be vilified, if anyone notices, for his hippy sincerity. Unfortunately, it's a boring record. There are no hooks and there's no real structure, just messy, jam-style soundscapes. The shortest track, Windmills is the high point of the album, a simply pretty guitar noodle thankfully sans the nature sounds. But this is undermined by a tune which fails to arouse interest, and by some incongruous rough string overdubs which take more from the song than they add. (Halo 17 review)

 Uhm, maybe the reviewer is right, but I love this record anyway.

Tracklisting

1. Asleep Underneath The Jesus Tree 
   
2. Marigold Perfume 
   
3. High Tide 
   
4. Legend Of The Albino Deer 
   
5. Windmills 
   
6. The Morning Birds 
   

Try it - MicePays

Hochenkeit - I Love You (1999)

Genre: Psych Folk, Freeform
Label: Road Cone

Psych Folk with some Asian ethnic refrences and Freeform Krautrockrumblings. Excellent record!

Tracklisting

1. Ritual Nacirema 
   
2. Help Me/Help You 
   
3. Pios Bori? (Who Can Tell?) 
   
4. Smokin' The Astronaut 
   
5. Frightening Diaspora, Drifting Cranes 
   
6. Fuzzy Rumble Face 
   
7. I Love You 
   
8. Domestic Peace 
   
9. A Roomful Of Sun 
   

Try it