Thursday 19 July 2007
Pink Floyd - Piper Release Brought Forward
EMI have intimated that the new triple-disc 40th anniversay edition of Piper At The Gates of Dawn will now be released on Monday August 27 throughout Europe. This handily coincides with the the English Bank Holiday, not that I'm being cynical or anything.
Wednesday 18 July 2007
Love - Blue Thumb Recordings Review
See Music Latest for review of the triple CD - 7.9 out of 10.
Torben has updated his site after a lull lasting over a month. However he has made a significant contribution to the site, focussing on Love's British tours of 1974 and 1975. It seems he won the recent Ebay auction for the photographs from that era and he has also got his hands on a gig-goer's diary from that time. Some fascinating stuff there if you've some time on your hands.
Torben has updated his site after a lull lasting over a month. However he has made a significant contribution to the site, focussing on Love's British tours of 1974 and 1975. It seems he won the recent Ebay auction for the photographs from that era and he has also got his hands on a gig-goer's diary from that time. Some fascinating stuff there if you've some time on your hands.
Tuesday 17 July 2007
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.
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.
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