Over the last few months at the site we have included an overview of new wyrd folk, a profile of The Jewelled Antler Collective and started an initiative to find more obscure British wyrd folk and experimental music.  This article will look at music out at the very edge of what is known as 'wyrd folk' into recent music that is affiliated by the media and listeners with the genre.

With technology to record and distribute music becoming ever cheaper, there has been an explosion of artists able to make and post their music to customers around the world.  These 'micro labels' have an informal set-up and use the internet as their primary means of communication.  With an explosion in the means of distribution we have seen a corresponding take up of making music.  However this is often a long-way from the mainstream, in sound and intent. 

Although the means of replication and distribution are now sophisticated and in the hands of musicians, many of these new musicians are taking a different stance to for example the dance world with it's virtual instruments, sequencing packages and audio-plug ins.  There is nothing wrong with this of course (and this writer was part of that for a long time), it's just that the musicians we are interested in covering here are creating an organic, low-fi, defiantly experimental, sometimes even primative music.

Here we have music where complexity is stripped away and the primal essence is left, from hazy field folk to howling late night ritual.  At their heart is a personal quest to explore their abilities, musical expression and seemingly to find a space of their own, be this musical, magical or imagined that is achieved through music.  Somebody somewhere labelled a lot of this music 'freeform folk' but this does not hint at the ranging of beguiling, unsettling and sometimes absolutely terrifying music on offer.

In this article we are leaving aside music coming out of the UK at present as we are covering this in our 'Strangeness of the Plough' initiative but oddly when we look abroad the music seems to be concentrated in three places, the US perhaps we would expect but then also Finland and New Zealand.  We will explore each in turn and then consider any linkages at the article's conclusion.

Sky clawing Cities cast shadows on the barren plains...

Part 1 ....USA

The proliferation of modern wyrd folk music is often driven by a number of artists who work across labels, artistic names and styles and this is certainly true as we look at the musical fringes in the USA and beyond.  One of the most proliferate and inspiring artists is Brad Rose, the main face of the Foxy Digitalis web site and associated label (including their great Foxglove imprint) at http://www.digitalisindustries.com.  From here Brad releases his own music and that of a bewildering range of others.   One of his most known names is The North Sea whose music is extended instrumentals of almost mournful atmosphere, hanging in the air, a cold edge to ambience but always with an organic, land based quality that somehow inherently hints towards folk music.    A wide range of release has been released quickly including 'Locust Grove' and 'Autumn Birch' as well as a notable split CD with the UK's similar sounding 'Xenis Emputae Travelling Band'.  The North Sea web site is at http://www.digitalisindustries.com/ns_index.html .

This pervading feeling has been connected directly with Keith Wood who records as Hush Arbors, a drifting folk song heard at a distance in a field type of sound to their music. Check them out at http://www.husharbors.com.  Their releases such as 'Under Bent Tree Limbs' and a number of works due in early 2005 are a peak of the wyrd folk and related genre, organically evolving, songs with nature sounds, unhurried and personal.    The North Sea and Hush Arbors released a split CD 'Singing through moss and mist' but went further still working together.   As The Golden Oaks they have released in early 2005 their wonderfully evocative 'Autumn Testament' album which combines the drifting instrumental passages with the songs in a warm album. 

This project may be explored at http://www.digitalisindustries.com/go_index.html.   Brad Rose also works with Eden Hemming as The Corsican Paintbrush on 'Lichen and Moss' and the two of them with Ammon Taylor as The Cone Bearers on 'Dew drops through glass blades'.  Details for these and no doubt further collaborations at the Digitalis Industries Web Site.   Brad along with Chris Skillern also records and performs as The Juniper Meadows on releases such as 'Pine Needles and Cones' with a more definite arcane folk song quality and has acted as the backing to Fursaxa.

In addition to all this great music, Brad also somehow finds time to write and promote the Foxy Digitalis web zine at http://www.digitalisindustries.com/foxyd/index.html which acts as a hub for their and other music.

Moving from this music we enter the archaic, improvised music of Davenport and their most visible member / force of nature Clay Ruby.  Davenport seemed to appear from nowhere in the early 2000s and keeping up with their output is frankly exhausting in the best possible way.  They never seem to stop, possessed of a need to make music.  But this is no ordinary music.  In writing this article I counted ten releases by them on my digital music player and I think I've got about half of what I want, everytime I get close to catching up they announce a load more, dripping out in limited quantities, deleted before you've even seen them.    There aren't many more freeform and sometimes relevatory than them - a mixture of improvised noise, throat singing, drones, field recordings, messed up processing, tribal drums, yelps, chanting, liturgy and howling.  My god, the howling.  If ever you walk late at night through forests you thought lost and come across a crazed group of musicians, their faces in contortions of things they should not see, that'll be Davenport.  Look out for 'Owl Movement', 'Marble Seed', 'Ooh too high Ditty' or the new 'Tongue of Bear'.  Clear your ears and check them out at http://www.demiurgic.net/23productions/davenport/ although this tells merely a fraction of the story.  Their up to date distribution site is at http://www.demiurgic.net/23productions/skulls.htm where you can also get the great releases by Postage and access a wider range of site features. They make Animal Collective sound like Peter, Paul and Mary.  They also inspire many spin off bands, chaotic, strange and low-fi as always such as Jesus Balls and Garage Indians

Another freeform / freak-out band from the USA is Wooden Wand and the Vanishing Voice again another highly prolific band of whom I've currently got six releases and I'm constantly searching for more.   Led by James Thoth the band was formed out of The Golden Calves, an avant psychedelic band and count around half a dozen people in the floating membership.    The band seem to want to simplify, cut out the complexity and make a series of taut, acoustic soundscapes that pluck, strum and pound.  Often they will move towards beautiful, minimalist songs such as Part 2 of 'Harem of the Sundrum', their placement amongst the other music makes them all the more effective.  Check out 'Angel Hair', 'XIAO' or the aforementioned Harem... release and their discography web site at  http://woodenwand.sinkhole.net/ or http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/1590/.   Also look out for releases such as 'Boiling Animals In The Sky' by The Wooden Cupboard a solo project of James Ferrarro of The Skaters which take the improvised, acoustic experimental approaches of Davenport and Wooden Cupboard and if anything seem to take it into even darker realms.

A band who alongside Davenport and Wooden Wand and the Vanishing Voice is at the forefront of combining extreme experimentation with songs is the huge dozen member, Boston band The Sunburned Hand Of The Man across a diverse and often obscure range of albums such as 'Headdress', 'Rare Wood', 'The Book of Pressure' and 'Magnetic Drugs' they unless a kind of instrumental shamanism combining multiple genres, often in the same piece.  It's their world, we're just listening in.  They are one of the most challenging, out there bands but their music repays the effort.  No web site.

Moving away from the edge, one of the mostly directly folk related artists who has clearly absorbed the likes of Comus, ISB and Tir Na Nog but remains individual is the wonderful Nick Castro at http://www.spyinthehouse.com/ whose 'Spy In The House Of God' was a highlight of 2004 and is definitely an artist to track as he progresses.

A band who combine the experimental with a sense of the traditional using a wide range of acoustic instruments is Pelt who on releases such as 'Ayahuasca', 'Empty Bells Ringing In The Sky' and 'Pearls From The River' combine raga, folk, blues, drones and experiment.  They can be explored and purchased directyl at http://vhfrecords.com/catalog.htm .  They are not alone in combining the experimental with the traditional as Tanakh also work in a broadly similar field.  Headed be songwriter Jesse Poe they have moved across three albums from quiet, whispered folk oriented songs towards extended soundpieces on their latest double album.  The first two albums 'Villa Claustrophobia' and 'Dieu Dieu' are both highly recommended in terms of their progressive slightly folk acoustic songs.  The new album merges 'Meddle' era Pink Floyd and extended experimental soundscapes and does it very well indeed.  Tankakh acts as a hub for many artists and we highly recommend exploring this further at http://www.alien8recordings.com/tanakh.php3