The Times discovers "freak folk"

Was this edited at all?

puke

I thought the oddest included "evidence" for Summer of Love 2.0 was that the Boredoms are playing the Vice fest

but, man oh man, i was all ready to rip this thing up line by line when i saw the thread title. bummer. now i won't get any of those mopes posting things like: come on, at least he's trying. and he's writing for a general audience and what do you expect from a newspaper, blah, blah, blah.

But dragging in Blue Cheer is lame. Leigh Stephenson rejoined for one show last year in SF and they do the same live album over and over -- and it's a heavy metal blooz band, nothing freaky folky about 'em.

Hallucinogens, rock 'n' roll, love of nature, interest in social justice. These are all people basically fleeing in horror from the homogenizing, materialist, bottom-line corporate monoculture that's overtaking America.

And this made me laugh because the "homogenizing corporate monoculture" took over America and buried everything a good long while back. Mix more "herbalism" in.

Did I tell you the time back in '88 when my friend at the local newspaper had to go an interview someone who was into wheat grass milkshakes and enemas? It attacked the disease of corporate monoculture poisoning your system from both ends.

"Initially dubbed "freak folk," it looked like a trend of the moment a couple of years ago, when two California artists, Joanna Newsom and Devendra Banhart, attracted attention with charmingly shaggy, deceptively whimsical, largely acoustic albums.

But the scene they spearheaded has grown steadily and expanded sonically, getting less folkie and more, well, freaky. It has also gone international. And this season — the Summer of Love 2.0 — it comes into full, wild bloom with releases, tours and festival appearances that promise nothing less than a new age of Aquarius.

The new music is more a mind-set than a genre. It usually employs acoustic instruments, though it's as likely to have roots in progressive rock, free jazz or Brazilian pop as in Appalachian ballads."

This is a computer software/programmer notation. As in Release 1.0 and Release 2.0 or version 1.98x3se. Now, Summer of Love II and I'm buying.

promise nothing less than a new age of Aquarius

Promises, promises no one can keep. Nothing less, huh? That's a strong bill. The horse would trot as well if some of the brags were dismounted.

come on now.

then there are others like Lavender Diamond I think, as mentioned how she hired a PR firm before releasing an album, are more about the image than the music

Feathers are weirdly actually the real deal. as much as their whole look and vibe annoy the shit out of me. they really do live in squalor in western mass.

goooo feathers!

while the article is hardly touching base on something "fresh" it's not terribly written

albeit a tad formulaic, i just don't think a lot of these bands should be clumped together

but a lot of them are friends and play the same shows. it makes sense in that way. they might not all sound alike, but they go together.

This summer kindred bands like the darkly pastoral Espers, the gorgeously lyrical Vetiver, the raging Comets on Fire, the entrancing Six Organs of Admittance, the boogie-rocking Howlin Rain, the molasses-grooved Brightblack Morning Light, the computer-enhanced Tunng, the improvisatory Wooden Wand and the noisily experimental Grizzly Bear are all releasing CD's, as are others - Jolie Holland, Ane Brun, Cibelle, Juana Molina and M. Ward - less connected to the scene but reflecting its aesthetics.

reads like a laundry list to me (with adjectives thrown in: raging! entrancing! noisily experimental!)

the raging Comets on Fire

Just a couple months ago this was a hipster metal band on the Invaders comp. They're a band for all features writers. Where's Witch? Witch surely belong here.

but reflecting its aesthetics.

Use the word aesthetics, earn an insult. The mind tosses upon the ocean.

But that may soon change

I'd say run this in Lex-Nex to see how overused it is. Just stand on your two feet. If you're gonna say it's nothing less than a new age of Aquarius, then certainly you must agree it will change NOT the waffling may change. Who will care if you are wrong?

"We're living in the age of the reissue,"

But I thought we were living in nothing less than the dawn of the new age of Aquarius!

You see them engaging with the music of their parents' generation almost like it's a contemporary phenomena.

Spend day in record store. Watch who buys Led Zeppelin records.

Mr. Chasny's work with Comets on Fire of Santa Cruz represents the noisier side of new psychedelia, as does the self-titled debut by Howlin Rain, a side project of the Comets' guitarist Ethan

Go to CD Baby. "represents more publicized side of new psychedelia," actually.

"I come from the biggest hippie area in the world," said Mr. Chasny, who grew up in Arcata, Calif. "But they don't listen to the real hippie music. They listen to Phish and that groove stuff. I love the old psychedelic music because it wasn't just imagery."

to the sad and tired jam band scene

Yes, here 'tis, briefly. Only someone else, not the writer, gets to be the strawman saying it.

The middle of the road hippies aren't as cool as the fringe hippies. Of course, Mr. Chasny. Hey, that would be a good title for a tune in the genre, "Of course, Mr. Chasny."

"Most of the album was written on hikes at Point Reyes National Seashore and is about interacting with the wilderness,"

That's a nice place to go. Lots of people do.

Time to make lunch.

nah he let ben chasny do it for him:

"I come from the biggest hippie area in the world," said Mr. Chasny, who grew up in Arcata, Calif. "But they don't listen to the real hippie music. They listen to Phish and that groove stuff. I love the old psychedelic music because it wasn't just imagery."

He lets Chasny do it for him. And the funny thing is Chasny's complaints of Phish scene are the same complaints I have of him.

this doesn't even make sense. if that's where all the hippies are, then whatever they're listening to would be the "real hippie music" be it Phish or any other jam band. chasny = douche

-- Satan's Slave (thefly88...), June 17th, 2006 11:51 AM. (roger adultery)

^^ wins the thread

And I hear Stephens has rejoined Blue Cheer full-time, or at least for the length of their upcoming tour. They're now 2/3 original members again.

whereas trip hop? sumpreme beings of leisure anyone?

"But they took time to exchange hugs with members of the audience, leaving a little pixie dust behind before heading back to the woods. "

yeah, that is just strangle-worthy.

By Dennis Cook
This is the soup
That I believe in.
This is the smoke
I'm always breathin'.
This is the way
I share my breakfast.
This is the way
I serve my sentence.

Devendra Banhart by Matt Fink
Devendra Banhart is making eggs. The hirsute breakout of an emerging scene that's been dubbed "freak folk" is having a late breakfast. "You won't come between me and my eggs," says Banhart, laughter and good vibes bubbling below his bright voice. They're just regular old chicken eggs on his plate. There are those who imagine Banhart lives in a tree house where he dines on snozberries and moonbeams washed down with condensation from lotus petals. A strange, magic-man legend has developed around him, but even just a few minutes with him dispels any ideas about cosmic messiahship.

What you find is an especially switched-on, ferociously perceptive cat who draws you in with come-ons like "What's shaking, man?" For the next hour, he talked animatedly between bites about every subject offered up. Banhart feeds off your spark and sends it back to you a little brighter and stronger. Like the many musical legends he's compared to, Banhart is an undeniably special presence, but he's also delightfully, deliriously human. It is his pronounced humanity - fierce and tender in equal co-mingled measures - that one picks up on in his music. It connects us with our own humanity, and that, my friends, may be the real reason all the kids are slipping under his spell.

Making and Breaking Mythology

Devendra Banhart by Chris Buck
"It would be very different if I felt comfortable with those terms like 'freak folk,' 'avant-folk,' 'New Weird America,' all that shit," remarks Banhart. "If I felt comfortable with those terms, it would be different. It would perhaps be something I felt responsible for or nervous about or the weight of. But I'm so turned off by – and want to have SO little to do with - these stupid and tacky and horrible terms that they mean nothing to me."

Since his 2002 debut, Oh Me, Oh My, there've been many attempts to categorize Banhart's sound, which carries echoes of, amongst others, Bert Jansch, Bonzo Dog Band, Holy Modal Rounders, and The Beatles. His music is infused with the free-wheeling, electric spirit of Tropicalismo, the politically charged late 60s/early 70s Brazilian art movement. Like all original noises, Banhart's music is hard to categorize and harder still to market. It speaks for itself, often in the gently warped tones that appeal to freaky people everywhere. He's been lumped in with contemporaries (and friends) Six Organs of Admittance, Feathers, Vetiver, and Joanna Newsom. There's little to tie these artists together beyond a shared appreciation for psych-tinged folk-rock of a certain era (Pentangle, John Fahey, Fairport Convention, Traffic) and the endless round-robin of guest appearances on each other's albums. Each shows a unique and restless imagination that no one phrase can easily condense.

Devendra Banhart by Autumn de Wilde
"Six Organs of Admittance is Six Organs of Admittance. He plays very singular and unique and specific-to-him music that you can tell apart from anything," offers Banhart. "Joanna Newsom is pretty un-fucking-classifiable. In time, Joanna and Ben Chasney will just be considered who they are and not some freak folk or whatever musician."

"My hero, my favorite musician, is Caetano Veloso. That's my number one," enthuses Devendra. "What gets me through a tour is listening to Caetano (slight pause) or Jorge Ben, Gilberto Gil, Os Mutantes, and all that. That's what gets me through my life. Tropicalismo becomes this big part of my life and this big inspiration, so I started thinking about Naturalismo. That's what we do – naturalism. I started talking to Andy (Cabic) from Vetiver about this. 'What do you think about this? Naturalism is a good one, right?' If we give them some alternatives then maybe people will start taking this seriously. It's not going to happen with these humiliating, embarrassing, cheesy, tacky phrases like 'freak folk.' Then he says, 'We don't want to be anti-artifice. We don't want to be against anything or elitist in any way.' I agreed."

"Then I started thinking about something I've said in every interview, which is that everything is a derivative of nature. Everything. Even the most plastic, most synthetic things are derived from nature. The source of them is found in nature at some point. Naturalismo becomes a completely all-inclusive thing. If there's one thing we can take from Tropicalismo, it's this anthropophagic attitude towards the world."

Campfire Sounds: A weekend-long camp out. Avant-folk performers from throughout the Northeastern United States gather at the 30-acre Wave Farm for special performances in a rural setting. This year there will be a main stage, and a second stage in the woods without electricity for acoustic performances. As always, after hours, everyone will gather around the campfire for sounds late into the night. Samara Lubelski, MV & EE with The Bummer Road, Gown, The Dust Dive, Latitude/Longitude, Stars Like Fleas, Bunnybrains, Melanie Moser, and more.

http://www.jimmccrary.com/pages/page1/images/gram2.jpg

That's bullshit. She didn't hire anyone. The publicist came to her and said I'll do publicity for you pro bono. Imagine being a musician with no money and no record deal and that's offered to you. Of course you say yes.

me either. more hippies! with some noise, please. I resolve to be more of a hippie myself.

"the raging Comets on Fire
Just a couple months ago this was a hipster metal band on the Invaders comp. They're a band for all features writers. Where's Witch? Witch surely belong here."

1. WTF? Comets on Fire have been around for years. Arthur first covered them in our Nov 2003 ish -- big feature by Tony Rettman on Comets, Six Organs, Sunburned Hand.

2. CoF are hardly "hipster metal." I'm trying to think of a way in which they're any kind of metal at all. (....) Nope, can't think of one.

Jay--do you not even like "Bloodstains" by Agent Orange? That song ROCKS.

Therein my own particular problem with the article. Perhaps time is a scarring factor as my life continues on, but I'm endlessly irritated by the lack of specific context for so much 'new' that is out there as opposed to the general hoohah here. (And yes, Scott, the point is you can't talk about everything, I realize -- it's still at best disengenuous and at worst kinda ridiculous to presume an endless series of year zeros done with back reference to 'some sort of time back there when everything was just about the music.')

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/section/movies/filmography/4/WireImage_4004912.jpg

I suppose my current favorite person who could be lumped into the unwieldy genre would be Larkin Grimm, basically because she put on this flat out amazing show at Terrastock that:

1) was a *performance,* not just simply a recital.

2) thanks to some choice lyrics in particular (it's true! ;-)) felt like it was in the modern 21st century world rather than hearkening back to some mystic time pre-electricity (not that I have a problem with that but ultimately it's a dead trope).

3) basically did what you kinda want to hope any performer does -- push the limits of what works until it could almost be ridiculous and make it work even better than expected.

So there.

In almost every interview, I'm asked about my 'connection' to the 'freak folk scene' as if there was such a thing.

Just because a lot of us are friends and all probably like to listen to Comus sometimes doesn't make it a 'scene.'

If someone can't tell Brightblack Morning Light from Sunburned Hand of The Man from The Bummer Road from Six Organs of Admittance, maybe they're just better off maintaining a safe distance from modern 'psychedelic' music in general.

I have no problem with the way the article was written / presented, and I've certainly seen a lot worse.

If all of this acoustic music does indeed go the way of grunge / trip hop / grime etc, it's because that's what the journos wrought. A lot of us are journalists or former journalists, myself included, so I can sorta understand (though not condone) the need for an 'angle' for everything. It may come off as insincere and patronizing, but it's just the nature of modern rock criticism - as in, not criticism at all, really, but simple acknowledgement of the ground floor, as it were. In other words, if you pick up on it quick, you can say you were there.

But remember, kids - those who know don't say, those who say, don't know.

And if you notice, i ain't said shit for a coupla minutes now.

I'm trying to think of a way in which they're any kind of metal at all. (....) Nope, can't

Guess you didn't get the Invaders mail out.

But but but you all live in a big house together! Like the Monkees! IT MUST BE REAL!

So did anyone catch the Devendra cameo on Wonder Shozen?

Golden Apples 2: The Appling!

And FWIW, Larkin G. just indicated she'll be playing a show in NYC tomorrow at 8 pm in the basement of 293 Jefferson in Brooklyn, so people should go.

"We're not a scene, we're just a collective of like-minded individuals who collaborate and tour with each other almost exclusively and have similar ideas on art, politics and nature."

I've never toured with anyone mentioned in that article despite counting at least half of them as acquanitances, another third as friends. And I know I'm not the only one who goes to great lengths to attempt to transcend this imagined 'scene.' It's self preservation as much as my own sense of personal independence - I mean, I can stick out my tongue and TOUCH the fucking ceiling here, you know what I'm saying?

Like minded? Please. We all record for different labels. We live in different cities. I've met Devendra exactly twice. Collective? This isn't Food Not Bombs, buddy. The connotation of that word brings to mind dudes with blonde dreadlocks living in trees. I own three guns and am currently full of White Castles.

Art, politics and nature? Here you generalize the most, and most dangerously. Moz sang "I thought that if you had an acoustic guitar it meant that you were a protest singer." Similarly, fans of this new breed of 'folk music' and journalists who write about it assume that because some of us really dig the Incredible String Band, that we're all these shrieking naturists running around quoting Walden and splashing body paint on ourselves. I resent this assumption and am alarmed that it still exists, as much as the assumption I refer to above about my band's 'improvisatory tendencies' - which assumes that because our music doesn't always adhere to the Western sense of tonality, or because it isn't constantly reverential to the Beatles legacy, that it is somehow not preconceieved. This belittles my objective and my work.

The bottom line is that when scenes exist, camaraderie soon turns to competition, and mutual respect becomes pointed resentment. I've been watching it happen in 'scenes' since I was thirteen years old. So if some of us are resisting this genre tag, our intent is not to ignore the elephant in the room, but to further distinguish ourselves personally and artistically from one another. And journalists who choose to cover this music have a responsibility to report on it accurately.

Besides, you know, when the shit goes down, who gets to be Silverchair? Do we draw straws from one of our many straw hats?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/1385000/images/_1385460_lotr300.jpg

MV, Devendra, Wand Juan and Ben Chasny face down the critics after a forcible shaving.

All your points are totally dead on when applied to yourself, the VV, and the SHB---but, hey, I already agree with you that the piece not only wrongly lumps your band in, but then totally botches the one-adjective-description ("improvisatory") you do get.

I DID make the goof of not looking to see that the friends comment came from you (oopz), so let's pretend that an Esper or a Feather came on here and said or something.

Although, yer right, journos are wrong in lumping, say, Joanna and Brightback together, there's no denying that the "scene" CAME packaged. I'm guessing that the "scene" is more of a nebulous network connected in the mystical MyShrub or something because I've been to enough package shows/festivals/tours and heard enough guest spots on everyone's CDs to be unable to shake the visualization of some freewheelin' technicolor bus of Merry Wanksters. Or read the testimonials in the liner notes to Golden Apples sometime! I've seen people lash out on the tag "freak-folk" (good, cuz it's fucking stupid), but outside of you guys, I haven't seen anyone fight the idea of being a "scene" too hard.

This all makes me sound like a curmudgeon, but when all is said and done, I could probably count the bands mentioned in the article that i DON'T like on one hand.

You also bring up a good point in that not a lot of the bands are really fighting too hard to NOT get lumped in, I guess I hadn't thought of that.

Seems to me that this time next year, when everyone's just wild about zydeco or something, all will be revealed. I can tell you right now that people like MV and Chasny will still be here, for instance, just as they were before. As I said in a recent interview, it doesn't bother me, because you can usually tell a lifer by his music. I'd hope that most of the folks who are intrepid enough to give this music a chance in the first place also have enough discrimination during these very cynical times to separate the wheat from the chaff, the lifers from the tourists. I'm pretty optimistic about that.

why them?
what qualifies a band to a scene? Location?

I'm actually shocked that this stuff gets a round two.

There's no way that we'll be listening to Invaders revisionist metal this time next year but I bet Lavender Diamond will still be bringing it.

Then we can all have our long-awaited "MTV2 discovers freak-folk" bitchfest.

All I'm saying is let the neophytes and kids buy all the records, or half of them and bin what they will, and may the market work its miraculous efficiencies!

(Oh uh, that was way too capitalist there huh? not in the spirit at all at all, I'll make amends, go braid someone's hair)

They play folk music for people that read Magnet instead of folk music for people that read Arthur.

They don't share the aesthetic traits (kiddie-drawn art, mystikal bullshitte, being fucking weirdos).

They're not really connected at all with the exception of "folk is popular right now," which makes that a totally valid graf in the story.

(and i had no idea that people thought of comets on fire as more freak-folk than freak-metal until i read that article either).

Wait...looked like?

the only problem i had with this article was the summer of love 2.0 comment which also fits right in with the imaginary "scene" stuff. but it's not like other journalists aren't guilty of the same exact thing and it's also not so egregious to try and tie quite possibly disparate cultural strands together because looking from the outside in it does actually seem like there are more similarities than not. besides, if the point is to maybe turn your reader on to other artists if they maybe only know a couple that are mentioned, this seems like a decent way to do it. how many of these artists would show up in the same last.fm playlists/recommendations?

...yeah, and Stone Breath also, And where is the luv for Terrastock/Terrascope Mag!?!

"Freak Folk" is more like a second or third wave of "Psychedelic Folk" at this point.

Vg

The most daft part of the NYT article was But with a tendency toward art that's both homespun and solipsistic, and that shows little interest in music industry trappings, they can seem less interested in Making It Big than in keeping it small. Which is why Devendra shows up in NYT fashion shoots and Joanna appears on Jimmy Kimmel Live, but hey let's prop up that indie mystique. Aside from that, the article is the same one we've been reading for years. Let's go back to 2004...
http://www.providencephoenix.com/music/other_stories/documents/04238381.asp

The question of whether the scene's over or just beginning depends on whether the current crop of artists keep things interesting enough to attract new musicians. If they do, then this time next year Madonna will release her freak-folk album. Or did she already?

Thought the last Devendra was a dud. I know it's a bit absurd but I see Newsom's new disc as some kind of bellweather. I've heard the material, and it's great; whether or not symphonic arrangements will destroy or enhance it is the question. I like Espers, but sometimes I wonder whether I'm hearing the evocation of actual emotions or the evocation of the soundtrack to a 70s eurohorror film. Whatever happened to Faun Fables? It's like they got kicked off the commune.

PS Brown is the new black.

well ok, such a piece never existed; but the thrust (hooray for hyper-derivative tribute bands that harken back to the 60s! again!) is the same.

lots of those bands are great and don't have the "kooky" abrasive vocals like banhart/newsome

excluding the feathers singer, of course. all that guy's missing is a jester hat and permanent employment at ye olde rennaissance faire, in the parking lot of the hy-vee on route 24.

also: on her "London, London" cover, Devendra apes M. Ward's style. that's one connection, but also Devendra's sometime bassist used to be M. Ward's bassist.

i think bands that do not fit this freak folk tag abound in this article. juana molina. grizzly bear. cibelle. m. ward.....

true dat on the feathers guy.

New album on Drag City... touring... the usual. She/they certainly would have been an appropriate name to drop, though.

JAMES BLACKSHAW + GLENN JONES + JESSE SPARHAWK

WEDNESDAY JUNE 21ST
AT ABOVEGROUND RECORDS
GREAT HARBOR TRIANGLE
EDGARTOWN, MA

7PM / ALL AGES / $ 5 SUGGESTED DONATION

lobster rolls at my house afterwords.

i might just come on down

I wish there were shows like this in my town too...

With little-to-no-coverage it seems...

Aboveground Records

July, 28 2006 at JACK ROSE + GLENN JONES + GEOFF MULLEN @ Aboveground Records!
..8 Great Harbor Triangle, Edgartown, MA 02539
Cost: $5 suggested donation

I hope that link works. Asian Mae is Colleen from CS. Here solo stuff is just beautiful 4-track folk stuff. She has a CD-R out and another one on the way.

I saw them open for Smog. They were objectively bad -- completely lacking in charisma or presence and musically dull.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-reviews/A166KWUBADDTVX/ref=cm_cr_auth/102-4301937-3588968?%5Fencoding=UTF8

How can a band be 'objectively' bad? I think they're great.

Campfire Sounds 2006 Festival
at free103point9 Wave Farm, Acra, NY
Review by Justin Stewart

"Who wants to carry a harp down a hill?" asked one of Stars Like Fleas'
myriad performing members, shortly after the Brooklyn sometimes duo,
sometimes-sprawling collective finished the first of their two sets
early Saturday afternoon. They had to move from the second to the main
stage, no mean feat considering the latter was less a stage than a
small clearing beside a thick-trunked tree about half a mile up the
hill. The performance had been well worth the trek, both for onlookers
and the harp, guitar, xylophone, violin, cello, flute, sax, keyboard,
drums and wind chime-carting Fleas. Minus electricity, and thus shorn
of their usual sub-surface buzz and drone, the group more than
compensated with a boost in bleating unadorned melody, stretches of
silence (or at least no music, as leaf rustle and amazingly well-timed
bird caws plugged the gaps) and playful resourcefulness, exploiting the
percussive possibilities of twig snapping and tree-as-drum to the
fullest. An early festival high point, the set, perhaps more than any
other, encapsulated what is so novel about Campfire Sounds; that is,
the placement of avant folk acts heavily reliant on software and
gadgetry (and mostly hailing from densely packed urban areas) into a
summer idyll setting.

Now in its second year, Campfire Sounds is somewhat of an anomaly among events at Wave Farm, the experimental internet radio station.
free103point9's second home (after Broklyn). There is less bias for the
recondite and the theoretical, or "Transmission Arts", as founders
Galen Joseph-Hunter and Tom Roe have named their primary focus, and
more space for artists packing honest-to-goodness songs. That isn't to
say that Campfire Sounds lacks for experimentation, or that other Wave
Farm events like Spectral Garden or the frequent exploratory Webcasts
are classroom cold, just that this is the fest most apparently suited
to spreading down blankets, lighting up the grill, or simply
disappearing into one of the property's numerous hammocks to the tune
of a uniformly agreeable roster of acts.

The lush acreage of Wave Farm is located in the Catskill Mountains,
about a two and a half hour drive from New York City. The safe remove
from anything urban seemed to put outfits like the feral freak-act
Bunnybrains in their proper place and further extract the organic
sounds and sylvan themes that groups such as The Fleas and The Dust
Dive explore in their instrumentation and lyrics on record. The Dust
Dive's Bryan Zimmerman went so far as to wear his environment, draping
himself with bog grime and megaphoning his poignant little-boy-Iost
vocals, accompanied by original member Laura Ortman's plaintive violin,
while knee-deep in a pond for his group's first set. Afterwards,
Zimmerman complained of baby leeches that had tumbled down his shirt
but that had, admirably, led to no interruptions.

Melanie Moser kicked things off on the generator-powered main stage
with some lightly strummed folk in the Sandy Denny mould, decorated
with effects pedal loops and some awkward George W Bush sound clips. A second Dust Dive set and one of several gap-filling DJ sets from Roe
who, in keeping with the festival's unbuttoned looseness, stuck mostly
to recognizable reliables from the rock world, led to an atmospheric,
sound-dense performance from the decidedly un-folk (avant, freak, or
otherwise) Latitude/Longitude. Battling the threat of rain and a
finicky power source, the NYC duo still managed to distance themselves
from the other acts through the attention to detail exhibited in their
maze-like, peculiarly haunting treks.

Stars Like Fleas' choice timing, right as the newly bright sun began
lowering behind a distant Catskills mountaintop, would have excused and
even made a sub-par set magical, but the group stole the show with a
transcendent performance, with not one of the dozen or so members'
joyous contributions wasted. Uninterested in mere complacent layering,
they offered the urgency and surprise of a more earnest Akron/Family.
Unison chants of refrains such as "forever always" remained bearable
thanks purely to their charisma.

Following a head-scratching mindfuck circus show from Beefheart
disciples Bunnybrains, experimental guitarist Gown delivered Campfire
Sounds' loudest shockwaves, his delayed fingerings cresting into
glassy, torrential sheets of echoing chaos. More in line with his
collaborations with Thurston Moore (under the name Bark Haze) than his
frequent Christina Carter teamings, Gown's maelstrom left noise-leaning
onlookers in awe and more than a few neighbors undoubtedly poking their
heads out of their farmhouses in confusion many acres away. Rain delays
bumped Samara Lubelski and MV + EE with The Bummer Road's sets past the midnight hour, welcome luck especially suited for the former's fragile, whispery musings. Lubelski, dimly lit by only a few surrounding tiki
torches, plucked and whispered tunes some degrees removed from her work with groups like Hall Of Fame and Metabolismus.

With an audience roughly three or four times the size of 2005's and
with the continuing expansion of the Wave Farm (a new study centre
opens in 2007), it's likely that this young festival will see several
more years. More fun, depending on your definition of the word, than
the typical freel03point9 happening, it wasn't exactly Woodstock
hedonism. As at the station's installation or sculptural transmission
sessions, artists tried to somehow incorporate the acoustics of the
bucolic surroundings, with varying degrees of success. Radios wedged
into trees scattered across the property and tuned in to the live
broadcast of the event, saturated the entire farm with the crackling
tones, in a perfect gesture of union between microradio and fringe
music.