Renfair psychedelia

I'm not afraid to admit that I've always had a soft spot for The Moody Blues. That blend of 60s psychedelic rock and foppish, lute-playing minstrel pastiche has always been intriguing to me. Here are some other songs that exemplify this style:

The Pentangle - Light Flight
Dr. Strangely Strange - Dark Haired Lady
Caravan - Winter Wine
The Incredible String Band - The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter
Pink Floyd - much of Piper at the Gates of Dawn
Probably a number of Jethro Tull songs, though I don't know them well

I'm sure there are countless others. It was a leitmotif through the Spinal Tap movie, so it must have, by then, been a rock cliché. If anyone else has any suggestions, especially from the 60s, I would love to hear them.

http://assets0.smart.fm/assets/users/kshelp/713047d8.jpg

i think Midlake is the present-day band currently carrying this torch

STACKRIDGE

a bunch of early prog records kinda slot into this aesthetic too don't they

donovan is kinda the king of this isn't he?

Steeleye Span

Trees - The Garden of Jane Delawney and On the Shore

Steeleye Span has an electrified medieval folk vibe to it as do a few others.
I do like that late 70s Jethro Tull era where they sound like the turn of the 70s britfolk thing but smothered in synths. Tales From The Wood has it. I think Heavy Horses too.

But yeah updating a medieval sound seems pretty rife in the stuff later thought of as Acid folk.

I also really like Semiramis Dedicato A Frazz which has a circus music influence which would probably tie in here.

This is about where I recommend this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Seasons-Change-Experimental-Genuine-Jawbone/dp/1906002320

good? the book i always recommend is Electric Eden -- one of my favorite books about music.

Seasons They Change explicitly tackles acid folk as (sometimes retroactive) concept but gives a good grounding in the medieval/Pre-Raphaelite impulses floating throughout. That it takes it and runs with it up through last decade is even better from where I sit.

Canterbury Glass - Sacred Scenes and Characters

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwkInw2aRw0

(I guess this is more medieval monastery than renaissance fair)

xp I know the author of that book, she's dead nice and a real expert in her field (arf)

oh i know a good renaissance fair song, it's renaissance fair by the byrds

not heard the human instinct cover of it before (slightly nsfw video):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAhfnvl7me0

There's a band called Renaissance and the clue is kinda in the name

The band Renaissance was originally a post-Yardbirds project for Keith Relf, His siter jane and Jim Mcarty. They left before the band took on the lineup it may be best known for. I'm not sure who if anybody remained overlapping the 2 main lineups.

I found the book Seasons They Change a bit too listy. Not really going into things in great detail. Think I far preferred Electric Eden

Thanks for the suggestions, I will have to check them out.

Midlake reinvents themselves every album -- however, I don't think they've ever sounded like renfair psych. I've listened to Antiphon, if that's the album you're talking about, and it doesn't have that sound to me.

I forgot about the band Love. Some of their stuff was very mintrelley in that way -- almost a self-parody (think Andmoreagain, The Castle, Old Man).

*minstrelly? I know that's not even a word.

Dorothy Carter! Later of the Medieval Baebes!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbF-sXeMQBs

Not from the 60s, but Circulus

ctrl+f comus ??

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GB6Krjys-MQ

^^^ yup.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Q4BrtuM5mU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdcDm978tng

spriguns + mandy morton = all-time

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FntYQi9G9Bg

need the spriguns records.. stupidly did not buy the reissues ten yrs ago/..

wow at the human instinct, that's got to be from their london sojourn?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=ZO7sq3uSWAg

renfair by way of the pre-raphaelite brotherhood

men-an-tol

their EP and album are both outstanding and hugely underrated

(a 2010s band not a 60s one i should point out)

I was just wondering if the Spriguns reissues were still around. I did get that Time Will Tell but none of the others. It sounds like the turn of the 70s Britfolk sound somewhat updated, incorporating some later 70s rock elements.

Carol Of Harvest are also a decent slight update on that Britfolk sound. LP dates from '78 in Germany. Second Battle had the lp out a few years ago but I think that may be long gone too.

Esoteric reissued several Spriguns titles in 2013

It's always surprising to me how more modern psych revivalists miss out the folk element, it was absolutely core to British psychedelia in particular. When you listen back to this stuff you really get a sense of how the rules and conventions of rock music hadn't been codified properly, there was a sense that anything could creep in and often did. Modern revivalists tend to start with the melodic and harmonic strictures of current rock music and work backwards, but the presence of folk in the mix really opened the 60s and early 70s stuff out melodically. Modal scales and harmonies are crucial to this stuff and that's what you don't hear much of in eg Midlake.

Kaleidoscope (UK), Nirvana (UK).... both possibly too twee though?

Sally Oldfield (Mike's sister) made some records in this vein as well, some with Mike under the name The Sallyangie, but her own song Hide and Seek is my favourite (same sort of thing but with... added disco!).

United States of America - 'The Garden of Earthly Delights', and bits of 'The Nightmare of JB Stanislas' by Nick Garrie (although both possibly a bit too electric for your needs?) Pentangle's 'Basket of Light' and parts of the first Kaleidoscope album.

calling it psych might be a bit of a stretch, but some of malicorne's dronier stuff works for me:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsMjvaTE-HA

and on a similar tip there's veronique chalot

Malicorne came out of Alain Stivell's band or at least some members did. His electric early stuff has a bit of a psych/prog feel in places.

I'm not sure about the Medieval thing with Albion Band but I find their Battle of The Field has an internal glow I find very lysergic. & it always reminds me of Kosmische music.

I've tended to find there is an indigenous folk element to most european early 70s prog that I've heard. to echo the comment by whoever that is above. Seems to be one element of the melange that makes up the sound.
Not sure when rock became formularised as something that ceased to sound like a melange of other elements, you can hear the mix in a lotof the early stuff from 50s-70s jazz, folk, r'n'b, and whatever other elements.

listening to malicorne right now! they were awesome. not psych but buy their records anyway.

https://fbcdn-sphotos-f-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xfp1/v/t1.0-9/10169216_10153737117277137_8503431178719778013_n.jpg?oh=bffbecdbc67f33a7752922bbac6ee91c&oe=558F1809&__gda__=1430938732_4c22187153ecc0cc1fb54c71210e6d4a

there is rock guitar in places.

oh that looks nice, would buy it if i saw it

third ear band should probably be mentioned here right?

i need to give those spriguns albums a go i guess. i had the mandy morton album 'magic lady' at one stage, but i couldn't really get into it - was kind of bumbling folky pub-rock iirc?

All of William D Drake's albums are essential. Not just for ren folk devotees, but in general.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apxzwkO8nnM

I should also mention this wonderful Bob Stanley-compiled collection from a few years back. The Mellow Candle track was a particular revelation.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61s2E4OJ%2BAL.jpg

Was waiting for the Cardiacsy crossover. William D Drake is a hero!

i think i'll pass on the william d. drake. but mellow candle are always top of the heap! also:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkSFlJubQU8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1jNLR9tjXE

also, did nobody mention...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuJSC0o_egI

also a big fave of mine. the dunhill vinyl is cheap as dirt. (i love this band in general. your mileage may vary. as they say.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdJngJgljSk

i think i'll pass on the william d. drake.

Why? I mean, I know musical taste is subjective and all that, but I've had so many experiences of others dismissing this stuff out of hand(or worse, total disinterest) and I just don't get it. What is it that turns people off that I can't hear?

it's too.....something for me. i didn't want to play the whole thing that's all i know.

Gryphon, motherfuckers

always wanted to hear midnight mushrumps just based on the cover, and spirogyra, yes!
straying outside the bounds of psych again, love the first john renbourn group lp:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eejS-nVrmks

xxxxxp he also did another one that i've got, its great - http://cps-static.rovicorp.com/3/JPG_400/MI0000/913/MI0000913966.jpg

"Gryphon, motherfuckers"

psych, though, really?

A bit more prog? Good though.
Wish I still had the 2fer of the 1st 2 lps but it disappeared on me.
& the Sanctuary anthology is tracked non chronologically and I'm not sure if it has everything from those lps on anyway.
Do wish the tv appearance from Magpie would turn up in good condition.

Definitely prog but impossible not to mention

Why? I mean, I know musical taste is subjective and all that, but I've had so many experiences of others dismissing this stuff out of hand(or worse, total disinterest) and I just don't get it. What is it that turns people off that I can't hear?

― Pheeel, Thursday, 26 February 2015 20:54 (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It's too knowingly cutesy and twee for me, and I am a HUGE Cardiacs fan.

The William D Drake linked upthread is just all wrong, it might be that I'm just not interested in modern recreations of this sound but it needs to be wide-eyed and kind of naive and informed by loads of drugs and it being the late 60s, OR it needs to be creepy and sinister and informed by loads of drugs and it being the late 60s/early 70s. The William D Drake feels like a genre exercise.

It doesn't help that in that video you can see them in a record studio and one of them is literally smirking in places.

Ougenweide?

I have the idea in my head that there is a strain of elizabethan/jacobian referencing post punk, some of it Derek Jarman connected/inspired? The first two albums by The Passage maybe, what other stuff?

It doesn't help that in that video you can see them in a record studio and one of them is literally smirking in places.

That's because they're a bunch of close friends having a good time playing music. Personally I like the interplay between the drummer and bassist on these videos, but whatever.

The William D Drake linked upthread is just all wrong, it might be that I'm just not interested in modern recreations of this sound but it needs to be wide-eyed and kind of naive and informed by loads of drugs and it being the late 60s, OR it needs to be creepy and sinister and informed by loads of drugs and it being the late 60s/early 70s. The William D Drake feels like a genre exercise.

See, now this is bullshit. If you'd said "I don't like his voice", I could understand that, but I can't hold with such an absurdly narrow and arbitrary criteria of musical worth. It's just dogmatic nonsense!

I also think it's worth pointing out the original recording of this song is almost as old as that venerated 70s era acid folk(recorded sometime between 83-4), and to my ears has that creepy, naive vibe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhTYgRaA60E

the American band Chrysalis were on another Saint Etienne related complilation, they seem pretty foppish and lute-playing, I'd always thought they were british

the Chrysalis album is a masterpiece.