the wickerman ost - OH JESUS GOD WHAT IS THAT!!

ps. cheers on the heads up on the earlies ... i got the nme review. plus am going to put up some articles online of the earlies that i did last year!

Pete B: Boards of Canada is a fine fucking call, particularly with the use of children singing.

Other plausible stuff: Appendix Out/Alasdair Roberts, Current 93, Stone Breath, Tower Recordings/PG Six... most of though aren't influenced by the Wicker Man, so much as by the same sources - Shirley Collins, Pearls Before Swine, ISB etc.

I can see some similarities between Comus and the Wickerman in the way they both evoke paganism, but Paul Giovanni's score does have something sweet and innocent about it (to unnerving effect, I don't mean it's twee like Vashti B.). Comus is just plain malevalent through and through.

Mostly members of a band called Hocket by the look of it. 'Ave a butcher's 'ere ducky.

Well, probably, but again we're back to the issue of what the listener gets out of the music sometimes being greater than what the musicians put into it. It's like listening to, say, Evan Parker's trio with Barry Guy and Paul Lytton. I'm aware that all they're really doing is throwing about the same old 30-year-old sounds and gestures at each other, but that doesn't mean that I can't get into it as a listener and start imaging manifestos that make absolutely no sense to anyone except myself. I suppose that's just the pregorative of the listener.

http://www.ironmaiden.com.ua/ua_ru/Singls/s00-1-1.jpg

Gather In The Mushrooms: British Acid Folk Underground
Castle Music
Released: 19 Apr 2004

Corn Rigs - Magnet
Love In Ice Crystals - Sallyangie
Lyke Wake Dirge - Pentagle
Graveyard - Forest
Milk And Honey - Sandy Denny
Morning Way - Trader Horne
Buffalo - Writing On The Wall
Silly Women - Bert Jansch
Liz's Song - Shelagh Macdonald
Lord And Master - Heron
Old Boot Wine - Spirogyra
Winter Is Blue - Vashti Bunyan
All My Friends Are Back Again - Al Jones
Rosemary Hill - Fresh Maggots
Love Song - Lesley Duncan
The Family - Mr. Brooks
Queen Of The Moonlight World - Andy Roberts
The Herald - Comus

There's a few things on that comp that are a total mystery to me. Sallyangie? Writing on the Wall? Lesley Duncan? Mr Brooks? Huh?

personally i am upset at the lack of inclusion of the trees.

ps. am doing an article on the memory band -- you have to investigate them -- i think you will really like them.

off to berlin!

All of a sudden, my local indie record store has an 'Acid Folk' section. And the 2nd hand shop is charging fucking upwards of fifteen quid for Steeleye and Pentangle records that you could pick up for mere bobbins this time last year. What the heck is going on? Why is there this interest all of a sudden? Is it a sudden thing? Okay, so I've only been dabbling with the genre for about three years myself, but there's definitely an upswing in interest going on. Just wondering what's spurred it. The Wicker Man??? Fallout from the Freefolk thing? I guess the Wire have been doing stuff on Shirley Collins...

Doomie - agree with the Trees recommendation, I love that band. There's a massive Airplane influence going on there, I'm also hearing proto-Tom Verlaine stuff too - I know he was a Fairport fan, so maybe, just maybe, he heard Barry Clarke's playing too.... Not heard of the Memory Band though. Ever heard of JAN DUKES DE GREY? Released two albums, the first being the folkier; the second one, at least from what I've heard, being quite a fetching blend of Comus-style proggy croak-folk, along with some Amon Duul II murder-by-guitar. Two records I really NEED.

the sallyangie stuff is excellent - if you like the idea of english folk with fey female (and occasional male) vocals at all, you should get it.

(i'm wondering if the writing on the wall mentioned on that comp are the same one who did the arthur brown-y "power of the picts" LP?!)

Anybody know anything abt Jade, another folk-psych outfit who have just had an alb re-released?

I've never heard Comus, but would like to.

Finally a reissue of one of the top ten UK folk rock classics of the '70's that sits along with Fairports "Liege and Leaf", Mellow Candle's "Swaddling Songs" and the Tree's "On The Shore". Staggering melodic folk rock with electric guitars, fiddles, harpsichords sweeping string arrangements and Marianne's beautiful voice. Easily as good as Sandy Denny's solo albums with the added bonus of some West Coast rock styled guitar breaks, this is a truly magnificent album. The record also features appearances by Terry Cox (Pentangle) Michael Rosen (Eclection, Fotheringay) Pete Sears ( Fleur de Lys) and John Wetton (Family).

Hmmm. Note the use of variants on those old chesnuts "beautiful female vox" and "mind-frying fuzz guitar". I'm sort of sceptical, but maybe I'll jump if I see it cheep.

Momus - thanks for the entertaining essay. Would strongly urge you to check out the Comus album 'First Utterance', that record reverberates with precisely the pagan/nature-worship/sensual themes you touch on (e.g. 'The Bite' is about the ritual murder of a Christian, literally left hanging at the end of the song, "hanging above the sin"). Not many records I've heard manage to sound quite that evil, it's gripping -and totally convincing- stuff.

BTW the Comus track on the Mushrooms compilation is a little unrepresentative of the rest of the album, lacking the Roger Chapmanesque growl and yelp of Roger Wootton and having relatively normal lyrics.

Anyone heard another band they're sometimes compared with by the name of MORMOS?

has anyone mentioned the bruton_town yahoogroup yet on one of these folkie threads? imagine this thread repeating over and over again year after year...

The Sea Nymphs http://www.cardiacs.com/seanymph.html

and Stars In Battledress http://www.starsinbattledress.com/

are in some small way influenced by The Wicker Man OST & The Incredible String Band and general the general wholetone approach to music.

I keep seeing this Show of Hands record. One of the top-selling UK folk acts, who keep scooping up music awards left and right. And that basically puts me right off ever wanting to hear them, but maybe there's something good going on with a cover like that.

Anyone heard those Jade things yet? Never got round to hearing them, so I still have no idea about them. But it looks like they've reformed and they're playing a show soon in London with Circulus and Katy Carr - both new names to me too. Anyone want to clue me in?

Jade are not very interesting. The Freak Emporium description is the usual hype to sell an album that sounds more like somthing by The New Seekers than Comus.