Every musician has been trying their hand at livestreaming from quarantine. But of all the ones I've watched, none of them have filled me with as much joy as Swedish folk singer/songwriter Kristian Matsson AKA The Tallest Man On Earth celebrating the 10th anniversary of his album, The Wild Hunt.

There's so much to love here, from Matsson's confusion about buffering speeds, to his partner's helpful advice about commenters. Then of course there are the songs themselves, delivered with such adorable energy by Matsson. Ellen Johnson of Paste said that, "Matsson makes the acoustic guitar sound like an orchestra," and I think that accurately describes this video, and everything I love about The Wild Hunt as an album. As far as I can tell, Mattson is just performing straight into the camera, with no additional audio setup — yet it sounds exactly as it does on the record. This is impressive, but also impressive to Matsson's brilliant guitar work and charismatic voice. The record is raw, using clever open tunings to fill out the sound, and the same goes for the performance in the video.

If you're a fan of folk music and Dylan-esque crooning (but more on key), check it out.

The Wild Hunt Turns 10: How The Tallest Man On Earth Changed Indie-Folk For The Better [Ellen Johnson / Paste]

Image: Matt Perich / Flickr (CC 2.0) Read the rest

We are sad to report that, according to John Prine's family, he has finally succumbed to the COVID-19 virus that he'd been battling for the past nine days. Rolling Stone writes of Prine's career:

As a songwriter, Prine was admired by Bob Dylan, Kris Kristofferson, and others, known for his ability to mine seemingly ordinary experiences — he wrote many of his classics as a mailman in Maywood, Illinois — for revelatory songs that covered the full spectrum of the human experience. There’s “Hello in There,” about the devastating loneliness of an elderly couple; “Sam Stone,” a portrait of a drug-addicted Vietnam soldier suffering from PTSD; and “Paradise,” an ode to his parents’ strip-mined hometown of Paradise, Kentucky, which became an environmental anthem. Prine tackled these subjects with empathy and humor, with an eye for “the in-between spaces,” the moments people don’t talk about, he told Rolling Stone in 2017. “Prine’s stuff is pure Proustian existentialism,” Dylan said in 2009. “Midwestern mind-trips to the nth degree.”

We say goodbye to this great American songwriter with this performance of "Angel from Montgomery," recorded for Austin City Limits, in 2018.

Fly, Mr. Prine. Fly.

Image: YouTube Read the rest

Folk legend Joan Baez, upon hearing the news that fellow iconic American singer-songwriter, John Prine, was hospitalized with COVID-19, decided to play Prine's classic "Hello in There" from her home and dedicate it to him.

News began to circulate yesterday through Prine's family that the 73-year-old singer was in the hospital and in critical condition with COVID-19. Today, his wife, Fiona, told SF Gate that the singer, who's been dealing with both lung and neck cancer in recent years, had improved overnight and was now in stable condition.

Image: YouTube Read the rest

My friend Mark Casale and I were talking about Captain Beefheart last night (as we are often want to do) and were yucking it up over the surreal late-night TV commercial for the Beef's 1970 record, Lick My Decals Off, Baby (which I posted about last month).

This prompted Mark to ask me if I'd ever seen the bizarre promo video for Cat Steven's 1976 song, Banapple Gas. I'd never even heard of the song. It was a track on Steven's ninth studio record, Numbers. Numbers was composed as a concept album, subtitled "A Pythagorean Theory Tale."

[Numbers] was based on a fictional planet in a far-off galaxy named Polygor. The album included a booklet with excerpts from a planned book of the same name written by Chris Bryant and Allan Scott. The booklet features pen-and-ink illustrations drawn by Stevens.

The concept of the album is a fantastic spiritual musical which is set on the planet Polygor. In the story there is a castle with a number machine. This machine exists to fulfill the sole purpose of the planet – to disperse numbers to the rest of the universe: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 (but notably not 0). The nine inhabitants of Polygor, the Polygons, are Monad, Dupey, Trezlar, Cubis, Qizlo, Hexidor, Septo, Octav, and Novim. As the last lines of the book say, they "followed a life of routine that had existed for as long as any could remember. ... It was, therefore, all the more shocking when on an ordinary day things first started to go wrong."

"Overlooked" is a series of belated obituaries in New York Times for people of note who were overlooked at the time of their passing. Their most recent "overlooked no more" subject is Judee Sill.

Judee Sill was a 70s singer-songwriter, the first artist signed to David Geffen's Asylum Records. During her short-lived career in the early-to-mid 70s, Sill received little attention or airplay. While other singer-songwriters of the time sang about personal relationships and political protest, Sill's ethereal music explored themes of rapture, redemption, spiritual love, occult themes, and the deeper meanings of it all.

Sill's life was as troubled as her work was complex and under the radar. She was a juvenile delinquent, a junkie, and a prostitute for a time. Judee Sill died in 1979 of a drug overdose which was likely a suicide.

While she was not widely recognized during her lifetime, her music has had a significant impact on many modern artists and that influence only continues to grow. Liz Phair, Shawn Colvin, Greta Gerwig, XTC's Andy Partridge, and Warren Zevon have all cited her as an inspiration.

Read the rest of the obit here.

[H/t Jenny Hart]

Image: YouTube Read the rest

I loved last year's All Tree from former Black Metalist Kvohst (aka Mat McNerney) and his folkier project, Hexvessel. The band has been described as "dark folk," "psychedelic forest folk," and "occult folk." Think of them as a somewhat more melodic and accessible Current 93.

On "Demian," the first single and video from their forthcoming record, Kindred (coming in April), they build the video around clips from Jean Cocteau's groundbreaking 1930 surrealist film, Blood of a Poet.

Bonus track: The hauntingly beautiful "Old Tree" from the band's 2019 release, All Tree.

Image: YouTube Read the rest

Martin Hayes is arguably one of the greatest fiddlers to come out of Ireland in the past 100 years. His soulful, moody interpretation of well-known Irish traditional music is unlike anything else out there. It's slow moving, slow to build, and beautiful in a way all its own.

I've mentioned his primary band, The Gloaming, here in the past. But he's also got another group going on the side: The Martin Hayes Quartet. At first listen, their music sounds like more of the same (which is a wonderful thing!). But take the time to plumb its depths and the personality of the musicians playing, the voice of the instruments, and the choice of tunes will make you understand that, while it may seem like you're trekking familiar country, the ground beneath your feet is a very different territory than where you've walked before.

This video of the making of the quartet's first album, The Blue Room, is as beautiful as the band's music is calming. I've watched and listened to it many times since I first found it.

I hope you dig it as much as I do. Read the rest

I was lucky enough to see Oysterband on this tour, back in 2009. With the shitstorm of lies, greed and hate that we've been enduring these past few years, Here Comes the Flood, from Oysterband's 2007 album Meet You There, has been on constant rotation in my home. Read the rest

The Imagine Village is what you'd call a super group.

Over the years, its lineup has included members of the United Kingdom folk music royalty such as Billy Bragg, Eliza & Martin Carthy, Simon Emmerson, The Trans Global Underground, Chris Wood and dhol drum master Johnny Kalsi. Each of the musicians comes to the collective with decades of musical excellence under their belts and an extensive catalog of tunes of their own. The re-imagination of English folk standards is the Imagined Village's game: they color well-worn chestnuts with musical traditions from around the former British Empire, occasionally updating the lyrics to reflect the current conditions and mood of the United Kingdom's citizens.

If it sounds like a familiar formula, it's because you've maybe seen it done before by the Afro Celtic Soundsystem. Both bands share guitar/cittern player Simon Emmerson as a driving force behind their music. This isn't appropriated music. It's multicultural music that draws together players from a myriad of traditions to honor the music of the past in a manner that's both exciting and new.

While "Cold, Hailey, Rainy Night" comes from a long tradition of "Night Visit" songs – music that features some dude whinging to a young lady that everything is terrible outside so she should let him in to warm up and uh, have sex. You'll hear it being kicked about the folk world, under various regional titles, around the world. This version, recorded in 1971 by by Steeleye Span, is likely one of the most recognized versions of it. Read the rest

This is really sweet. A young Irish girl, Grace Lehane of Cork, played "Britches full of Stitches" on her concertina by the side of a green pasture full of cattle. Watch in this video that her dad Denis uploaded in 2017 as the animals come running over to hear the "moosic." The beaming smile on Grace's face is precious!

(The Kid Should See This) Read the rest

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2x2Nx0Wk5I

A valiha is a special zither traditionally made in Madagascar from a local type of giant bamboo. It has a lovely sound, and there's a clear throughline from traditional songs played on a valiha to music of the Caribbean. Read the rest

The Marxophone is a 1912 toy instrument that combines a zither with a keyboard linked to flexible hammers that repeatedly strike the strings. The resulting sound, over the years, has earned a strange place in folk music. It's often used to evoke a mysterious carnie atmosphere, but Katherine Rhoda shows here how beautiful it can be.

Named for its inventor, Henry Charles Marx, they were sold new until the 1950s and can be found on eBay for about $300. You've heard it in many popular songs, such as The Doors' cover of Alabama Song (Whiskey Bar) and Portishead's Sour Times.

Marx also created the Celestaphone, a similar instrument with a more refined sound. Read the rest