Article in Yesterday's Metro

AN ESSENTIAL TASTE OF...PSYCH FOLK


Gary Higgins: Red Hash (1973)

Higgins recorded Red Hash in an intense 40-hour period before beginning a prison sentence on drugs charges. It was the only thing he released: a fabulous dreamscape of bucolic folk and dazed psychedelia adrift on pillowy melodies, palpably informed by a sense of loss, no doubt informed by Higgins' imminent imprisonment.

Psych folk (a mix of acoustic folk, psychedelic experimentalism and occasionally arcane spritualism that also drew on images from nature to create a blissful, nostalgic sound) first emerged in the 1960s on both sides of the Atlantic in bands as diverse as Love, The Incredible String Band and Pentangle.

Compared to those artists Higgins remains a relative obscurity but Red Hash's seamless blend of lavish orchestration, intimate dappled harmonies and mystical, yearning quality makes it a near perfect example of the genre. It has also proven very influential: modern outfit Six Organs Of Admittance was partly responsible for this album's 2005 Drag City reissue, while among todays thriving folk scene, psych folk is the progenitor of the more shamanistic-sounding freak folk of artists from Devendra Banhart and Espers to British drone experimentalists such as Tuung.

Next stop: Love: Forever Changes (1967); Vashti Bunyan: Just Another Diamond Day (1970); Devendra Banhart: Rejoicing In The Hands (2004)




I highly recommend Red Hash - the recent release contains two extra-tracks I have still to hear so more when I do.