Thanks, John. I was playing devil's advocate to some extent - as a long-term reader of the Wire, I do get a little weary of seeing terms like "dissidence" bandied about. Anyway, yours is an excellent response and one that I think hits the nail on the head. It makes me wonder (and this is a point that has been made before by others) whether if "Death and the Lady", for instance, was a new album, it would be seen as too exploratory for mainstream folk radio? I think it probably would.

That Black Flowers album you reference is really very good, by the way. I hope it's not a one-off collaboration - I'd like to hear more from them.