#Experimental Folk

[haveyoulistenedtothisalbum-poll]

Tracklist:

bird's nest • organs for oceans • avalanches • racehorse: get married! • the wrong parts (vivian sisters singing) • prayer • o jarhead! o wife! • hymn/her • _____ is water • (s)mother • wild dogs: divorce! • after the glandolinian war • carpenter/rebuild the body out of birds • 1990 was a long year and we are all out of hot water now

Spotify ♪ Bandcamp ♪ Youtube

[circleofbirds]

If you deny death, you deny life Let it suffer, let it shine What must be severed, lеft behind? What is there yеt to find?

[zef-zef]

Nadah El Shazly - Afqid Adh​-​Dhakira (I Lose Memory) From Nadah El Shazly - Ahwar (Nawa, 2017)

[mywifeleftme]

335: Areski and Fontaine // L'Incendie

L'Incendie Areski and Fontaine 1973, BYG

The late ‘60s and early ‘70s were when the past half-century of avant-garde developments in theatre, literature, film, and art music began to break through into pop. The results of these early flirtations have a sense of discovery and possibility that has continued to captivate generations of new listeners to this day. Brigitte Fontaine and Areski Belkacem’s L’Incendie should absolutely be considered one of the towering classics of the era (and, among the Francophonie, it probably is), but I only came across it for the first time early last year. It reminds me of something from the Velvet Underground / John Cale / Nico universe, simultaneously emblematic of its time and so ahead of it as to sound anachronistic.

On “Les murailles,” tape of Fontaine’s exhalations and what sounds like a kalimba are snipped up and looped to create a tinkling, twitching soundscape that presages the Books or Boards of Canada; the track that follows, “L’engourdie,” layers howling wah-drenched electric guitar behind a pretty acoustic folk pop number that would fit right in on a Brigitte Bardot record; next, the stark “Nous avons tant parlé” could be a theatrical elegy set in a dilapidated seaside church. Every song feels stylistically distinct, but Areski and Fontaine’s creative vision remains consistent; I hear post-punk and Björk and Sonic Youth, and I hear French early music and Berber folk and the ‘50s sound poetry of Henri Chopin in the same measure.

It’s always a challenge reviewing non-English language records because you’re stuck speaking to its purely sonic characteristics, which increases the likelihood you’ll hilariously misread it—call a song a soothing folk idyll when it’s actually about smashing international Jewry or something. With political, lyric-forward stuff like L’Incendie, it also means failing to engage with its message, flattening it as an artwork. (Unfortunately, there is nothing I as a person of French ancestry living in a majority-French city could do or could have done in the past to better interpret this record.) I asked French-language correspondent and girlfriend of the podcast Mea for one of her classic vibe checks, but she told me the reams of notes she took while listening were too dotty to share, so I can only assume hearing and understanding Fontaine’s words in their original tongue unchains some celestial horror.

Few of the lyrics can be easily found online, which forces me to rely on Le Gendre’s analysis, but critic Kevin Le Gendre’s helpful liner notes paint a portrait of a wide-ranging album that engages with recent post-colonialist bloodshed (Jordan’s Black September civil war with PLO forces on “Le 6 septembre”); the medicalization of psychic distress (“Ragilia”); intimacy and coupledom; and much more besides. What I was able to find of Fontaine’s lyrics online have a spiky surrealist poetry to them. From “Après la guerre” (“After the War”):

“Happiness blows The eyelids lie gently The sexes glow The eyes, by moving, make you cum The men returned from the war And on their heads, the grass grows back.”

335/365

[itsallhoney]

Untying A Knot | MUTUAL BENEFIT

tangled in knots, peeling at layers, holding in words stuck in time, living in me to live what i'm not, reflecting a twisted logic's hold i want to know how it feels to be free

[fedoracore]

Chop Suey - Eartheater (2023)

[wissily]

Listen/purchase: The Nature Out There by Kinit Her

[caardamoom]

hello to my smattering of followers. not only do i enjoy posting various musical ephemera, but i also enjoy writing about various musical acts.

i wrote about a group of musicians over in Melbourne that are very dear to my heart for bandcamp daily the other day, and if u like flash games of doug martsch playing basketball, then you'll probably like this too.

read it and i will be forever grateful <3

[haveyoulistenedtothisalbum-poll]

Tracklist:

Envoye Aux Racines • Denial • De Corps Et De Sang • Kunming Hillbillies • J'Commencerai Pas à M'en Faire • Tsé Quand Ça Va Ben • Rollin' Down To Burma / Ça Roule Ma Poule! • Le Reel Alcalinisant • Parallel 69 • Que L'yabe Me Suce • Verbal Diarrhoea • Mercedes • Va Donc Chier

Spotify ♪ Bandcamp ♪ YouTube

[kaltsektion]

On "Classic Fevers and Chills" Ayami Suzuki, a Tokyo based musician and improviser meets up with an American guitarist Rob Noyes. Together they have molded seven tracks full of extremely intimate improvised folk music. Suzuki`s bare voice and Noyes` raga-like guitar playing creates subconscious cobwebs for the listener to hang on.

Bandcamp: (x)

[zef-zef]

Maya Al Khaldi - ترويدة لسامي - Sami's Lullaby From Maya Al Khaldi - ع​ا​ل​م ت​ا​ن​ي (Other World) (Tawleef, 2022)

[circleofbirds]

These crosses all over my body Remind me of who I used to be Let Christ forgive these bones I've been hiding And the bones I'm about to leave

[reckonslepoisson]

Araçá Azul, Caetano Veloso (1972)

Much of Araçá Azul feels like recordings of Caetano Veloso’s idle, distracted mind; like someone has followed him around and put to record not just the stuff he hums as he strolls down the street and the vocal gymnastics he might tumble through with his kids but also his most grandiose and dramatic fantasies. One doesn’t usually get such sincere and genuinely profound experimentalism from pop stars; baffling, but entirely compelling.

Pick: ‘Tu Me Acostumbraste’

[findasongblog]

This weekend’s discoveries: 

#1  Pink Lint – Sunbright Motel

The “Sunbright Motel” in the song for me is a last resort where everything is possible and everything is ok, no matter how fucked up you are. You are invited to let go with a primordial cry and to learn - so much that you experience your own boundaries.

(source, translation by me)

Added to FAS Spotify playlist indie folk/country/americana.