What is psych folk...?

Subject: RE: What is psych folk...?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 18 Aug 13 - 01:36 PM

Paul Burke - PM
Date: 03 Oct 10 - 05:20 AM
Psych folk?
Jung but Growing.
Reich Jung Sailor.
Follow me Down to Karlov.
Analyst Gordon....
.,,.

Slow burn ~~

but what happened to -
'Who's a-Freud of the Big Bad Wolf'?
'Klein the Highest Mountain'?
'Sorry Seems To Be The Adler Word'?
'Eysenck of You Night & Day'?
'Laing A-Growing'?


Ta·ra

~M~

Subject: RE: What is psych folk...?
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Aug 13 - 12:54 PM

...And that (occasional) folk promoters can't use computers - my website link should go to:

http://www.milesofsmiles.co.uk

Subject: RE: What is psych folk...?
From: Stringsinger
Date: 18 Aug 13 - 12:38 PM

It's been established that folk singers are psychos. :)

Subject: RE: What is psych folk...?
From: GUEST,John MilesOfSmiles
Date: 18 Aug 13 - 12:25 PM

Ha ha, encouraging to see that this thread is still receiving occasional visits three years on! Some great links shared above, so many thanks for these.

I'm having some trouble creating a new thread at the moment - Joe is helping me out with that, but whilst I struggle through to that point I wanted to share news of an folk show with a heavy dose of psych that we've arranged for next month:

Comus
Shirley Collins
Hladowski/Joynes

Islington Assembly Hall

Sat Sept 21st

...Full details at the Facebook event page &
milesosmiles.co.uk , and I hope to get a separate thread up soon...!

Subject: RE: What is psych folk...?
From: GUEST,Spleen Cringe
Date: 22 Jun 13 - 05:08 PM

Bump! Eleven Willows

Subject: RE: What is psych folk...?
From: GUEST,ArrowHead
Date: 26 Jan 11 - 02:07 PM

Must dig my The Story stuff out and play it. Wonder what's happened to them? Not heard anything since the excellent Arcane Rising.

They featured on the dark folk Britannia compilation John Barleycorn Reborn with their track 'The Wicker Man' (no relation to the film soundtrack). You can hear it here

Subject: RE: What is psych folk...?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 26 Jan 11 - 05:35 AM

Robin Williamson was the master of psych folk

His 2006 ECM album The Iron Stone contains his finest work to date, IMO - a masterpiece from a true master!

Subject: RE: What is psych folk...?
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 26 Jan 11 - 02:56 AM

Thanks for posting this ArrowHead. Must dig my The Story stuff out and play it. Wonder what's happened to them? Not heard anything since the excellent Arcane Rising.

Of course, they have the continuity with the 60s stuff in that Martin Welham was part of Forest...

Subject: RE: What is psych folk...?
From: GUEST,ArrowHead
Date: 25 Jan 11 - 07:02 PM

ISB and particulary Robin Williamson was the master of psych folk - meandering melodies, stunning compositions, lyrics and accopaniments.

The modern equivalent artists tend to have the musical feel of the 60s psych folk back drops but without the melodic or structural invention (such as Espers and Devendra Banhart)

One modern piece that evokes the haunting vibes of yore is this

Subject: RE: What is psych folk...?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 21 Jan 11 - 12:35 PM

Portentious? Moi?

The Music of Erich Zann

Subject: RE: What is psych folk...?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 20 Oct 10 - 08:54 AM

Oh, what the hell - I've just got my complementary copy of the new Stirrings through the door which features my musings on Fiddles - so by way of celebration here's my thing from yesterday:

Sedayne Sings Snock : The Hog of the Forsaken (19-10-10)

Subject: RE: What is psych folk...?
From: GUEST,Spleen Cringe
Date: 19 Oct 10 - 04:50 PM

This, on the other hand, definitely isn't psych folk, but is probably one of the most horrific slices of children's tv ever...

Subject: RE: What is psych folk...?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 19 Oct 10 - 04:38 PM

"Sara and Hoppity"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kR6FQG0H9-I


Bloody Norah. All these years I've been convinced I imagined S&H or misremembered something else. And all the while it was real! Real I tell you! Or possibly surreal - those close-up doll faces have a definite 'uncanny valley' quality which reminds me of Paula Rego.

Course, we didn't really do sensitivity in those days:

- 'Hoppity'? Why do you call him that?
"Because he's only got one leg and he can't dance properly."

Subject: RE: What is psych folk...?
From: GUEST,glueman
Date: 19 Oct 10 - 03:42 PM

There used to be an excellent film to accompany Hurley's Hog on youtube but it seems to have been taken down. It was everything a pop video should be, shot on film (8mm by the look of things), having only fleeting connotative engagement with the music AND a figure (the 'Hog' presumably) with a papier mache head. Truly fine work.

Subject: RE: What is psych folk...?
From: RWilhelm
Date: 19 Oct 10 - 02:43 PM

Sounds perfect.

Subject: RE: What is psych folk...?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 19 Oct 10 - 02:32 PM

Holy Modal Rounders, of course; and Michael Hurley, whose work continures to baffle & inspire unto this day - 19th October 2010 when I filmed myself singing Hog of the Forsaken for YouTube but can't decide if it's quite right...

Subject: RE: What is psych folk...?
From: The Sandman
Date: 19 Oct 10 - 12:47 PM

it does not exist.

Subject: RE: What is psych folk...?
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 19 Oct 10 - 12:32 PM

yeah.. there probably is a bit of 'Brit' bias to all this.

one of my favourite bands from the 60's
is the US "Kaleidoscope"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaleidoscope_(US_band)

Subject: RE: What is psych folk...?
From: RWilhelm
Date: 19 Oct 10 - 12:22 PM

Psychedelic folk and only one tiny mention of the Holy Modal Rounders?

Subject: RE: What is psych folk...?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 19 Oct 10 - 08:58 AM

As for fiction Lewis Carroll of course.
Then more modern children's fantasy would include Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising sequence. Anything by Lloyd Alexander. Ursula le Guin's Earthsea trilogy. The Neverending Story (not the films..)

Subject: RE: What is psych folk...?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 19 Oct 10 - 08:37 AM

Not forgetting The Owl Service too, of course...

Subject: RE: What is psych folk...?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 19 Oct 10 - 08:33 AM

Now we're cookin', PFR!

Of course we'd have to include Bagpuss in this too. Back in '83 I mooted a punk-folk-noise project by the name of PUSSBAG to cover the strange-folk numbers in emphasis of their genuine - er - strange-folkness. These days I think it would go down a storm. I did reconstruct a dark-loop / dub-step backing track for The Miller's Song a while back but lost the vocal track for a trumpet solo.

So from Bagpuss to other Smallfilms - Noggin the Nog, Ivor the Engine, and on to the dark & terrifying depths of Pogles Wood...

Subject: RE: What is psych folk...?
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 19 Oct 10 - 08:24 AM

"The Singing Ringing Tree"

"The Tinder Box"

"Sara and Hoppity"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kR6FQG0H9-I



1960's childhood was something of a scary far-out bad acid 'trip' ????

Subject: RE: What is psych folk...?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 19 Oct 10 - 06:02 AM

Much taken with the term Folk Horror as used by Mark Gatis last night on BBC4 with respect of The Wicker Man, Blood on Satan's Claw and Witchfinder General. How much of this filters though into the Psych Scene today I ask myself rhetorically? The Owl Service nod in the direction of MR James and even the theme music of my favourite sitcom comes from an album of Wicker Man tributes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOkBiLPtJiY

Other examples of Folk Horror? Children of the Stones, Worzel Gummidge, The Daemons (Dr Who), Catweazel, Sky, pretty much anything by Nigel Kneale...

Subject: RE: What is psych folk...?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 09 Oct 10 - 10:40 AM

"I doubt many exponents of early music reckon they're continuing an unbroken line of madrigal singer or wotever."

Sure. Indeed in my (admittedly limited) experience folkies are wont to bandy around references to 'the tradition' and 'the folk process' quite freely, while referring to revival songs and tunes rather than traditional material. That hardly concerns me, but it is curious that the ideas have been embraced (in a fashion) while the music itself yet remains other. If I felt I could get away with singing Dowland at my local singaround I happily would, but I fear I'm pushing it with unaccompanied ballads as it is.

Subject: RE: What is psych folk...?
From: GUEST,glueman
Date: 09 Oct 10 - 09:59 AM

Not jaundiced in the least, I think what young folks are bringing to the revival is great. I've just been listening to The Early Music show on R3. In spite of all the scholarship and compelling interpretations I doubt many exponents of early music reckon they're continuing an unbroken line of madrigal singer or wotever.

Subject: RE: What is psych folk...?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 09 Oct 10 - 09:23 AM

Well, as far as I'm concerned "the revival folk genre" describes something I've heard a great deal of and don't identify with at all. But to your jaundiced eye, glueman, I'm quite sure what I do would be just as pretentious/fake/boring/[your adjective here] as pretty much everything else appears to be.

Subject: RE: What is psych folk...?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 09 Oct 10 - 08:05 AM

"Not me mate."

The amount of people with a particular interest in traditional folk both here on Mudcat and 'folkies' in general, is I'd guess actually quite tiny. In fact it might as well be 'early music' as far as to what extent traditional folk is perceived as even being 'folk' to most 'folkies'. Ironically, regards psych-folk, it's possibly got more in common with some of the old ballads (thematically at least as has been touched upon below) than much of what passes as folk proper for most people today.

Subject: RE: What is psych folk...?
From: GUEST,glueman
Date: 09 Oct 10 - 07:56 AM

What are you bringing to the feast that's so special/ different/ important then PR? Quasi-historical re-enactment? Broadsides on a theramin? Hearthside harmony in the function room of the Black Bull?

Subject: RE: What is psych folk...?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 09 Oct 10 - 07:36 AM

I do believe the folk revival genre is what almost everyone is talking about on Mudcat.

[Shudder] Not me mate.

Subject: RE: What is psych folk...?
From: GUEST,glueman
Date: 09 Oct 10 - 06:44 AM

Ideally we'd be in a hyphen-free musical environment. I do believe the folk revival genre is what almost everyone is talking about on Mudcat.

Subject: RE: What is psych folk...?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 08 Oct 10 - 02:28 PM

"I have difficulty with it being both without becoming simply a genre - the folk revival genre - that has arbitrary rules like any other popular type."

But isn't that precisely what we've got?
Or are you saying that the hyphen is in fact the very thing that prevents the full semantic assimilation of 'Folk' with a capital F into 'folk revival genre' arbitrariness? I could run with that.

Subject: RE: What is psych folk...?
From: GUEST,glueman
Date: 08 Oct 10 - 10:03 AM

Seems to me folk can either be a sound, with identifiable stylistic parameters, or it can be a set of historical texts that either whither in an archive or are re-invented in each generation's own image. I have difficulty with it being both without becoming simply a genre - the folk revival genre - that has arbitrary rules like any other popular type.
I see hyphenised folk as a way of assimilating the revival 'message' for a new audience, which for some will feed back into the tradition.

There is a genuine thirst for traditional music that bands like Bellowhead exploit (in the nicest possible way) among people who want folk music but don't or won't buy into the negative signifiers that surround it.

Subject: RE: What is psych folk...?
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 08 Oct 10 - 09:31 AM

The beauty of being a bright inquisitive 6th form student in semi-rural zumerzetshire in 1977
is that it was just so 'normal' and natural to play and write 'new original' music
in a loud electric adolescent testosterone fueled band
that happily encompassed diverse influences as organically related & curiously co-existing
as the likes of mc5, the move, the clash, xtc, jack the lad, pentangle and gong...

[ plus the sum total of all their collective influences ]

..and the local public library kept a damn good
inspiring trad 'folk' & blues LP collection....


Of course we watched old grey whistle test and read the NME,
and envied teenage life in the big cities..

..but then, father stored his weekly delivery of cider in the shed,
and it was only half an hours drive out of town in an older hippy mates car
to the nearest mushroom fields....

and plenty of village halls, scout huts and pub skittle alleys
for amped up rehearsals & gigs and pissed up girls 18th birthday parties..

Now 30 odd years later, despite natures unending cruelty..

..fatter, balder, failing eyesight & hearing, memory loss & confusion
.. and an arthritic drummer..

3 decades of exposure to all kinds of 'new genres' and 'historic archive rediscoveries'
and our ever healthy attitude to music in all its heterogeneous shades of glory still aint changed that much..

we just own a hell of a lot more expensive music technology and instruments
to amuse ourselves with.

so bollocks, i'm not uncomfortable with my chosen mudcat identity...

Subject: RE: What is psych folk...?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 08 Oct 10 - 09:05 AM

CS: Perhaps the folk word would never have become so vague and general if it hadn't have been the ambition of early revivalists to 'add to the tradition' with new songs.

Good point - and I can understand there being a certain amount of no really it is folk it's just a different kind of folk... when the "it" in question was by Cyril Tawney or Stan Rogers or Lal Waterson. It's just the way that the frontier of folk - or mumble-folk - keeps creeping outward that bugs me: something that sounds a bit like folk, only different gets labelled as 'folk', then something that sounds a bit like (something that sounds a bit like folk, only different) only different, then...

Subject: RE: What is psych folk...?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 08 Oct 10 - 06:13 AM

Love your word 'cleverfication', CS. It has now been formally entered into my lexicon.

Subject: RE: What is psych folk...?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 08 Oct 10 - 05:00 AM

What came first though - the PSYCH or the FOLK? I regard as seminal the moment back in 1967 when (age 6) I flipped over a certain famous hit single my mother played endlessly and heard THIS and was duly amazed. It still amazes me actually.

Subject: RE: What is psych folk...?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 08 Oct 10 - 04:46 AM

Which another thing - no-one called it psych-folk at the time... at least a generation went by before that term was applied.

It was longer with FOLK - a hundred generations at least!

Subject: RE: What is psych folk...?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 08 Oct 10 - 03:25 AM

The main attraction of the term 'folk' as a catch-all umbrella term which can be hyphenated into a multitude of creatures which bare no resemblance to actual folk probably has less to do with influence than the fact it's a single syllable. It's far too short for music journos who must feel terribly oppressed when confronted with such a simple musical term. And thus it begs cleverefication through hyphenated embellishment and obfuscation, which confuses everyone else ;-)

Seriously though, it's just a label on a box and no different to hundreds of others. Perhaps the folk word would never have become so vague and general if it hadn't have been the ambition of early revivalists to 'add to the tradition' with new songs. The stable door was opened and the folk horse (you know the one that doesn't sing) has bolted. Hence decades later we have psych-folk and all the rest merrily hyphenating away.

Subject: RE: What is psych folk...?
From: GUEST,Spleen Cringe
Date: 08 Oct 10 - 02:48 AM

Pip - psych-folk (a term that has been around a good few years and is probably interchangeable with acid folk) usually denotes music influenced both by folk and by psychedelia (hence the hyphen). Personally, I wouldn't describe Trembling Bells, Ali Roberts or Shirley Collins as psych-folk, wonderful though all three are, because I don't really detect the psychedelia in their music, with the possible exception of some of the tracks on Shirley's Power of the True Love Knot. I would, on the other hand, describe Espers as psych-folk, in that it is contemporary music influenced by the 60s/70s music that was retrospectively labelled psych-folk. Which another thing - no-one called it psych-folk at the time... at least a generation went by before that term was applied. I don't really mind the term - it seems to me to be a good, accurate label to signify music influenced by folk and psychedelia but distinct enough not to sit comfortably as either. Trouble is, any old shite gets labelled psych-folk these days - usually on eBay.

Of course, the label is far, far secondary to the music, which you either like or don't.

Subject: RE: What is psych folk...?
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 07 Oct 10 - 06:51 PM

I have a vague notion slowly fermenting and formulating how the 'folk' influences
and other haphazard stuff swirling and congealing in my aging head
will eventually translate to hard drive recording
via cheap electric guitars, fuzz boxes, analog synths,
'trad folkie stringed instruments', cider and space echo..

but fuck knows what anybody ever forced to listen to the end result is going to make of it..

or what any unfortunate listener would bother calling it.. ?????


hopefully it wont be too shite or blatantly derivative.


But one thing i do know is I want to sound as if it was recorded no later than the 1950's
and only recently rediscovered rotting to wormy compost
in some old dead eccentric 'Beat Group' record producers shed....

Subject: RE: What is psych folk...?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 07 Oct 10 - 06:01 PM

Returning to the OP:

What do people think of the term?

Pretentious, vague and hype-tastic.

What do people think of the idiom?

Well, I liked the Weed Tree. Generally what it brings to mind is a lot of wifty-wafty "ooh, how magically inspired we are" mood-pumping, at least at one end of the spectrum. Exactly like what Bright Phoebus wasn't. The darker end I haven't frequented much, because just reading about it scares the crap out of me - probably more than actually listening to it would do, although I don't feel inclined to take the chance. (Probably a fair amount of mood-pumping going on down there, too.)

Subject: RE: What is psych folk...?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 07 Oct 10 - 05:40 PM

I'm aware that a lot of these things get called hyphen-folk of one kind or another, but I still can't see why. I'm not saying anything about whether it's worth hearing - I think cLOUDDEAD's first album, the Faust Tapes and the Goldberg Variations are well worth hearing, and will go on about them at some length given a chance, but I don't feel the urge to call any of them 'folk'. I just don't understand the dynamic of taking something that doesn't appear to be folk and insisting that it is folk... only it's a new and different kind of folk... What's the point?

Part of what I don't get is that the word "folk" seems to be being used in a heavily value-laden way. If I say "this is a folk album" I don't mean "this album is really important because I feel it contributes to a diffuse ongoing project which I can't define but I know it when I hear it" - I generally just mean is "this album consists wholly or mainly of traditional material".

Perhaps the difference is that I started with folk, then dropped it completely in favour of jazz-rock, krautrock, punk, post-punk, indie, baggy, drum and bass, electro, Julian Cope, GYBE! and Scott Walker, then got back into folk; I never felt that what I was into at any one time was or ought to be called 'folk'. And still don't.

Subject: RE: What is psych folk...?
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Oct 10 - 05:36 PM

I guess the Beth Gibbons/Rustin Man record got labeled as such; and Rustin Man (Paul Webb) was the bassist in Talk Talk, who are one of the key contemporary 'visionary English' acts cited by Rob Young in Electric Eden.

Subject: RE: What is psych folk...?
From: GUEST,Spleen Cringe
Date: 07 Oct 10 - 02:35 PM

Punkfolkrocker, in that case, check out Broadcast & The Focus Group

Subject: RE: What is psych folk...?
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 07 Oct 10 - 02:35 PM

eg...


"Chase the Tear"


http://www.portishead.co.uk/


???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

Subject: RE: What is psych folk...?
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 07 Oct 10 - 02:20 PM

maybe its just me and the local rough cider..

but when I listen to "Portishead",
especially the televised
live-in-studio performance of the "Third" CD..


i'm sub-conciously thinking.."hmmmm.. 21st Century 'folk' band..????"...

Subject: RE: What is psych folk...?
From: GUEST,John Miles of Smiles
Date: 07 Oct 10 - 01:02 PM

Very much agree on the Wicker Man soundtrack, good shout.

I'd like to apologise for the glibly florid sheen of my last post - who could tell I'd been writing a mailout moments before...?

Suibhne - splendid stuff, and I know the arcade well - I went to secondary school in Southport, though I've only been back once (during the summer) in the last five years or so (I'm a Wiganer myself).

Subject: RE: What is psych folk...?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 05 Oct 10 - 03:50 PM

Weirdly - or wyrdly - no mention yet of The Wicker Man, the soundtrack of which is ground zero for Psych Folk: take a bunch of traditional lyrics and insert neo-pagan gloss to taste and pervert the idiom accordingly. The result? Seminal!

*

We were in Southport today where we wasted £3.50 ($5.564 US) coverting new money to old pennies in order to play the penny falls & fruit machines on the end of the pier, which is something we always do in Southport. Today we were on a winning streak, and lasted 45 minutes until the house cleaned us out, though we left munching Kit-Kats and I kept a 1961 penny (the year of my birth) for luck. Luck? you say, Luck? How can an Aggressive Secularist such as yourself believe in luck? Well, it's just as well I did because in town, in my favourite Antiquarian Bookshop (Kernaghan's in the WEayfarer's Arcade) I found a first edition of Robert Graves' English & Scottish Ballads for £1 ($1.590 US). Am I a happy bunny? You bet. I was so chuffed I bought a lovely 1932 ediution of The Oxford Book of Ballads for £5 ($7.948 US) to go with it.

Subject: RE: What is psych folk...?
From: GUEST,Ed
Date: 05 Oct 10 - 08:55 AM

Yes, it's a shame that you're so mindlessly unpleasant.

So be it.