#Acid Folk

[undergroundrockpress]

The songs I like : Jake Holmes - Dazed and Confused (1967).

Page heard this song when Holmes was opening for the Yardbirds, and he covered it. Without crediting the original author. Page doesn't like having to. Without Led Zeppelin, this song would have remained in the shadows, but still… a little mention of the author would have been honest. Page finally reached an out-of-court settlement with Holmes… in 2012! It is for this type of fact (among others, because it is not the most disturbing of the long list of stupid things committed during their great career) that, although I love their music (especially the first album in fact) I have not a lot of esteem for this group, humanly speaking.

Finally: the original version of Jake Holmes is excellent!!!

[thespliffbunker]

This is a public service announcement … …… … with guitars… sort of!

[dmduc]

eddie marcon - 少女, ふわふわあい

[hezigler]

She Darkened The Sun

A little Acid Folk to celebrate the total eclipse of the sun.

[dustedmagazine]

The Royal Family — S/T (Cardinal Fuzz / Echodelick / We, Here & Now)

Photo by Elijah Shark

Don’t confuse The Royal Family with the garage pop band that gigged around Edmonton in the 1960s. This regal troupe lives in the now. They’re a Toronto-based psychedelic supergroup comprising personnel from various outfits, such as ROY, Possum, Wine Lips and The John Denver Airport Conspiracy. Such a multifarious origin means that their influences also arise from multiple sources. Raga, drone, kosmische, chanson and baroque elements all wind their way into the band’s sound. The Royal Family’s technicolor tapestry spreads across multiple branches of a vast psychedelic family tree, the luminescent roots of which originate from various points around the globe. They fuse all these influences together with their own whimsical notions, brewing a heady concoction perfect for mind expansion.

The Royal Family’s chameleonic approach to psychedelia reveals itself immediately. They kick off their debut album in a raga mood with “Morning Song,” a swirling whirlpool of chiming acoustic guitar, a meditative drone and a sitar melody courtesy of Jordan Sosensky. The Indian-tinged harmonies circle gently like slow motion turbulence that peppers an otherwise sonorous river. The languidly moving eddy currents mirror the refrain “take your time, it’s all you have.” That phrase is the perfect summation of the spirit of the album, which unfolds with an unhurried grace. As the track climaxes, various percussion implements enter at all angles evoking the ecstatic revelry of Amon Düül’s most delirious emanations.

With a tongue-in-cheek wit, The Royal Family satirizes Canada’s symbolic subservience to the monarchy with its name, while simultaneously embracing the country’s anglophone and francophone roots with its lyrics. “Le Ciel Bleu” and “Chocolat” showcase chanteuse Astrid VanRuymbeke’s delightful French singing voice. These two tracks, along with “La Maison Du Bonheur” emphasize the band’s baroque leanings, employing flute, melodeon, xylophone, chimes and other unconventional instruments. The Royal City really lean into their baroque side on “For the Birds,” which contains vocal harmonies eerily reminiscent of The Left Banke’s “There’s Gonna Be a Storm.” It’s the gentlest track that the band offers and includes contributions from Toronto folk mainstay Hieronymus Harry.

The back half of the record is a song cycle that narrates the stages of a caterpillar’s metamorphosis into a butterfly. It flows with a lysergic stream of consciousness logic and incorporates multiple genres within its kaleidoscopic corpus. The propulsive “Chrysalis” gives a nod and a wink to Kraftwerk and Neu! while “Metamorphosis” and “I’m the Wind” tug at threads previously loosened by Olivia Tremor Control. It’s the two-part “When I Was a Butterfly” suite where The Royal Family lets its freaky wings unfurl. The song is a culmination of all that came before, the perfect denouement to this cosmic opera. 

Bryon Hayes

[jahoctopus]

Bridget St. John at Epsilon Spires, Brattleboro, Vermont

Sunday May 28th, 2023

with David Nagler

[soundgrammar]

Listen/purchase: The I.W.W. Song by The Holy Modal Rounders

[bushdog]

(via ちるちるみちる CHIRU CHIRU MICHIRU | Mayu Hatashita)

[mclennonlgbt]

This song is so pretty 😍😍😍

[colossulyouth66]

【2024年7月24日 SHIMワンマンライブ】

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[cruel-nature-records]

Excellent review of Kitchen Cynics / Margery Daw / Grey Malkin ‘Weeping Stones’ by @AfricanPaper

Out 29 March

5 copies left

[jasonaaronpro]

Draken Asher: The Rising Star of Acid Folk

Dive into the soul-stirring world of Draken Asher, the prodigy behind acid folk. 🎶✨ Catch his exclusive interview and performance this Thursday at 7 pm. #DrakenAsher #AcidFolk #LiveMusic

Join us for an intimate session with Draken Asher, the emerging virtuoso of acid folk music. At just 18, Draken has captivated audiences with his intricate guitar skills, soulful vocals, and a unique blend of genres that he calls “acid folk.” Starting his musical journey at a young age, Draken has evolved into a multi-instrumentalist with a deep, eclectic repertoire. In this segment, we dive into…

[music-crush]

Kazumi Tomokawa

Otanjōbiomedetō, acid-folk hero, Kazuki Tomokawa (nee Tenji Nozoki)!

[hezigler]

"Train Leaves Here This Morning" Dillard and Clark

Roll one, light it, take a hit, and pass it on...

"Y'know, y'wouldn't bogart so much if you didn't talk with your hands too."

[dustedmagazine]

Wet Tuna/DUNZA — In the Running 3 (I Heart Noise)

A pair of acid folk mainstays pay each other homage in this brief but somehow also expansive excursion into spun out psychedelia. Wet Tuna is, of course, the latest iteration of Matt Valentine’s home-grown trippery, an uneasy intoxication of drone, folk, funk and electronics. DUNZA is James Jackson Toth’s pandemic outlet, conceived in about 2019 as a distraction during uncertain times. To this you can add the input of one Gabe Walsh, who records as Earthly Forms and Solilans; his short, Afro-percussion pocked “Trailer,” which picks up bits of both covers, kicks off the album in a dreamy slow-jammed shimmer.

Still, intriguing as Walsh’s entry is, it’s probably not what you’re here for. The main attraction here the cover-trading, which highlights points of agreement—and divergence—between two out folk innovators. Wet Tuna goes first, with “Wand Arise,” a cut Valentine first tackled for the Lagniappe Super Session project celebrating Toth’s birthday in 2022 (we reviewed it here.) It’s a relatively early Wooden Wand cut, still well within Toth’s oddball freak folk period, and it meshes well with Wet Tuna’s echo sheathed, slow-moving, trance-state aesthetic. If you didn’t know it was a cover, you wouldn’t necessarily guess it. It haunts its space rather than inhabiting it, sketching funk and rock ideas in transitory bursts of electric keys and electric guitars, but letting them slouch off into the margins.

DUNZA takes on “Sweet Chump Change,” a slyly propulsive groove of epic length that you might have heard at a Wet Tuna live gig if you go to such things. Toth, who has evolved into a more song-structured, lyrically focused writer over time (check out his James and the Giants S-T from last year, one of my favorites), here reaches for wordless gnosis. The cut is anchored by its serpentine beat, which sidles up to the twos and fours and then pops them hard. Lucid, silvery keyboards reinforce the afro-funk aura, though the picture slips in and out of focus. Toth and a woman (maybe Leah?) murmurs the title phrase repeatedly, and that’s pretty much all you get for lyrics. It’s a shifting, elusive alternative reality, not too different from the original but very different from what Toth has been up to lately.

The three cuts share a good deal, and indeed, in a longer recording, the cohesiveness might shade into tedium. However, with three tracks (or really two plus a mash up), the format works, as both artists find much common ground in their respective bodies of work.

Jennifer Kelly

[thoughtswordsaction]

Interviews: Jeni Magaña (Magana, Mitski, Lady Lamb)

Photo by Andi Taylor We are thrilled to present you an interview with the talented Jeni Magaña, the creative force behind the solo project Magana. Best known as the bassist for renowned artists such as Mitski and Lady Lamb, Jeni Magaña is set to enchant audiences with her upcoming album, ‘Teeth,’ scheduled for release on March 25th through Audio Antihero Records and her own Colored Pencils…