Recommended Folk music (#1 - #10)

TOM HANSON: Everything Takes Forever
Despite how cliché it might sound, from the very first bar to the very last, Everything Takes Forever mesmerizes its audience like catnip, never once letting go long enough for the listener to catch his breath. Take a little Tom Waits and Leonard Cohen but make them write dream pop, blend in Nick Drake but turn the dial towards lush atmospheric backdrops, plug in Cat Stevens-type vocal warmth and resonance then lift your eyes to a darker psych folk landscape where Peter Mulvey could slowly empty his thoughts and you're in the right vicinity. These songs are simultaneously dark, textured, sparse and lush, liquidy and weightless. Don't let it surprise you if the album both breaks your heart and mends it in the same listen; these songs are made from those bittersweet emotions like laughing through tears or somehow seeing the exquisite beauty of your own pain. Simply put, if you only buy one folk or rock album this month, this should be it.
Recommended if you like Elliott Smith, Nick Drake, Iron & Wine.
CD price: $9.99 / MP3 price: $7.99
COLIN MCGRATH: Window Seat
The first time you pop in a disc with childlike anticipation, a little bit on the edge of your seat, there’s either an immediacy to the music that grabs you or it goes in one ear and out the other. Colin McGrath fits into the former category: he has a way of crafting songs that pull you in one level at a time (rather than hitting you over the head with the beginning of a song), and crafts his emotional build with a most tender and yet forthright touch. And similarly, despite the number of times a music junkie can pop in a new album, be engaged with the instrumental parts only to be disappointed with the mismatched vocals, living with an album like Colin’s, where the first entrance of his voice hits such a perfect tone of conceptual resonance, is a reminder of how rare it actually is to find such perfect compatibility between singer and songwriter, whether both are the same person or not. So while his listeners are first engaged by his vocal quality, drawing from bits of Greg Brown to Paul Simon, Jackson Browne to Nick Drake, the wonder and integrity doesn’t end there. McGrath’s knack for instrumentation makes one ponder his background; from violin harmonics to charango to prepared and toy piano, his musical sense of space is reminiscent of an orchestrator. McGrath’s use of color and tessitura suggests thoughtful consideration of instrumentation, beyond what the majority of songwriters are willing to ponder: that of instrumental conversation, sonic space, and the ability to change a textural color with an effect that, while it isn’t audible, shifts the tone without question. At the same time, McGrath has a solid singer/songwriter approach and result. These are solid songs, often playful and light as well as intellectual and profound. Window Seat more than earns its esteemed place as an editor’s pick for male folk.
Recommended if you like James Taylor, Jackson Browne, Paul Simon.
CD price: $14.00 / MP3 price: $9.99
OLD SCHOOL FREIGHT TRAIN: Live In Ashland
Despite the fact that music is made ever so convenient and accessible these days through various digital media, seeing a band live will never stop being the epitome of an organic musical experience for both the band and the audience. Just as fans will rave about the thrill to see a band live, most musicians will tell you that performing before an audience brings the music to life in profound ways that a studio recording humbly aspires to meet. Live in Ashland captures this magic: the magic of one of the nation’s most notable acts on the acoustic music scene. Old School Freight Train, from Charlottesville, Virginia has been creating quite a stir among various circles from acoustic jazz to folk to progressive bluegrass. Mixing these genres together with a laid back, casual approach, held to its traditional influences by its old-time instrumentation of mandolin, fiddle, upright bass, guitar and vocals, the epidemic quality of OSFT has already been spotted by the mandolin master, David Grisman (having been invited to record on his Acoustic Disc label), to prestigious band contests (Telluride Bluegrass Festival, Rocky Mountain Bluegrass Festival) to granola-esque festival goers in the rolling hills of the rural Northwest. Now gearing up to showcase at the Northwest String Summit in North Plains, Oregon in just a matter of days, OSFT brings the particular energy necessary for a live show that can be enjoyed here if you aren’t fortunate enough to catch them on the road. Besides their energy and talent, the beauty of this band is their ability to satiate a wide range of fans ranging from that of Nickel Creek to Yonder Mountain, from Hot Buttered Rum to even Bill Monroe and Ricky Skaggs. This is a disc not to be missed.
Recommended if you like Nickel Creek, David Grisman.
MP3 price: $10.00
DAVID M. BAILEY: Two to See
The first time I heard this man four years ago, he took my breath away. Now several albums later, his songs push through even more deeply, breaking my heart, beckoning salty tears. Penetrating through to the soul of life in a stunning way, here is a man who knows what surviving and finding the beauty in life is all about. We often look to musicians to show us that; to frame this painful world in phrases and melodies we can grasp onto, understand and feel apart of. Maybe it helps us feel less powerless somehow. But having produced twelve albums since 1996 after doctors told him he'd be dead in 6 months from a tumor in his head, David has a rare insight into what life is made of and what it comes down to- so if we are to turn to any musician for framing our world with meaning, hope and a reason to keep going, he is an emissary for that. The first song, "Maybe" explores how "maybe this world was meant to break your heart," exploring many possibilities of what it all could mean and then finally concludes that "Maybe in the end, all we have is one another and maybe that's God's answer to the hearts that break in two." It's just like David to see the hope in the impossible and that's why this album, like all the rest, is one we fell in love with.
Recommended if you like James Taylor, David Wilcox, Tumor, Yusuf Islam.
CD price: $14.75 / MP3 price: $14.75
WESLEY JENSEN: Pirates and Cowboys
With swirling echoes of Wilco, Sufjan Stevens, Ryan Adams and Eisley (with Christie Dupree of the Eisley family on vocals), Wesley Jensen’s music has an aerial, soaring quality with the heart’s doors thrown wide open. Not holding back, not one inch, it’s clear that Jensen is gushing with muse beyond his years. Skipping through alt country, and indie rock, his folk-rooted foundation gives these songs a friendly and familiar disposition, whether they’re slow and poignant like Forward or semi-celebratory like Act Your Part. Any way you look at it, between his yearning vocals and organic songwriting, Pirates and Cowboys is nothing less than a gem.
Recommended if you like Wilco, Ryan Adams, Eisley.
CD price: $8.00 / MP3 price: $8.00
THE INNOCENCE MISSION: We Walked In Song
Opening with a pristinely simple yet profound song, “Brotherhood of Man,” commemorating the random and synchronistic, yet unforgettably meaningful, passing moments that connect total strangers in our world, Karen Peris again transfixes and lulls her listeners with her folk magic: her combination of voice and songwriting. No stranger to her fans, however, is her gift to freeze a listener in their tracks, emotionally spellbound. Her partly whimsical, partly passionate muse casts an analgesic spell over a troubled mind and soul, decompressing an overwhelmed spirit, soothing a traumatized heart, allowing the space to once again breathe in the mysterious, to deeply drink again from the gloriously bittersweet elixir of our human existence; as Peris puts it, this “beautiful life, full of grieving.” Not surprisingly, We Walked in Song, is chillingly reminiscent of her opening track in the way the album reaches out to soothe and inspire, lifting the chins of whomever might happen to hear, planting a seed of hope, offering a reminder that there is something precious and tender to believe in. From beginning to end, her songwriting is as exquisite and perhaps, even more intimate than previous releases, mirroring her sweetly-tattered voice, clinging at the purpose of life, embodying a longing as organic as the seed’s yearning for the springtime. Like a soul who has been kicked around and knocked about in life and yet still somehow refuses to be jaded or disillusioned, like a heart whose wrinkles and age spots make it all the more beautiful, Peris captures the dreamer that lives in all of us, regardless of what life has brought us.
Recommended if you like Mazzy Star, Natalie Merchant.
CD price: $13.97
AM: Soul Variations
With the lilting dreamy piano of Coldplay, and the mellow hooks of Wilco, and a moodiness reminiscent of Fleetwood Mac, AM has produced an album full of songs that are as welcoming as they are painstakingly crafted. Along the way, swirling electric piano gives way to delicate guitar arpeggios, plaintive vocals subtly roll along the backbone of rhythm into a place where thoughts are meant to be felt rather than ignored, and where purpose takes the place of apathy. There’s something pillowy about the expansive production on these songs, something grand about the incorporation of deep reverbs and slight residues of delay that leads to an overall feeling of cohesion for the entire project. Having already performed on KCRW’s Morning Becomes Eclectic, and been named by iTunes as having the best indie album of 2006 (for his previous release, “Troubled Times”), it might behoove you to get to know him now... this record will be showing up on top 10 lists soon enough.
Recommended if you like James Taylor, Fleetwood Mac, Jackson Browne.
CD price: $10.99
DAROL ANGER & MIKE MARSHALL: Woodshop
Woodshop, the first new collaboration in 7 years from these two masters of American string music, draws largely from their 1985, highly successful collaboration, Chiaroscuro, which sold over 65,000 copies worldwide. Now, after 30 years of musical and human experience, these two key players in the contemporary string band movement have come together to revisit the ideas and creative seeds that moved the public so deeply. Darol Anger and Mike Marshall have quite a history behind them both individually and as a duo, such as spearheading the David Grisman Quintet in the 1970s, the Turtle Island String Quartet in the 80s and working with musicians such as Stephane Grappelli, Tony Rice, Mark O'Connor, Bela Fleck, Michael Hedges, Tim O'Bien, and many more. While the spirit of the album circles around atmospheric and textural composition, blending the colors and bright, acoustic clarity often associated with country folk and bluegrass, their gentle brush strokes of jazzy harmonies and contemporary folk give a ever-expanding sense of landscape to these 14 viscerally-generous tracks. Zooming in beautifully on a particular sentiment, letting the instruments be unbound from designated song form, crafting incredible builds and emotional crescendos, and letting the music unfold from mood rather than by a top-down concept, these two masters have more than realized their emotional objective, leaving us with an unforgettable treasure.
CD price: $15.99
CAOIMHÍN Ó RAGHALLAIGH: Where The One-eyed Man Is King
Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh is not your typical Irish fiddler nor does he have a standard vision for his instrument. Removing the fiddle from its traditional role as a folk vessel and letting it speak purely in texture, atmosphere and timeless, motivic layers, conversing as a quality and as a color in a way that beautifully throws off its ancestry and stereotype, it is clear that Caoimhín hears a world unexplored and awaiting, somewhere between the lines of traditional music and sound collage. The Irish Times defined him as “inhabiting the eccentric fringe of Irish music,” and while seeds of traditional music are certainly budding within these ten striking tracks, his eyes and ears are looking further into the distance, almost seeming to musically illustrate the mist that mysteriously obscures the heather-dotted hills trying to emerge and be seen from behind. Sometimes soloing on hardanger fiddle, using crosstunings and layering his performances with juxtaposed styles and emotions, tapping into harmonics and extended techniques, this man truly pokes at the imagination, stirring a real awakening to the voice of the fiddle and its potential in Irish music of today. Where The One-eyed Man Is King features fiddle not just as a driver of reels and jigs but with an ability to command context and atmosphere, as much as a guitar or the Irish landscape itself can.
Recommended if you like Martin Hayes, Penguin Cafe Orchestra, Iarla Ó Lionáird, Peadar Ó Riada.
CD price: $13.99 / MP3 price: $11.99
KEVIN HUME: The Truth About Ants and Aphids
With immediately quaint and beautiful fleshed-out orchestral textures, this bite of succulent, lemony chamber-feeling folky pop is unbelievably satiating, particularly for fans of neo-70s folk. Kevin Hume unifies that kind of classic retro folk sound which one might liken to the Beatles and Simon and Garfunkle with close-up vocals and complex harmonic textures containing no imaginative limit; using everything from classical harp to strings to woodwinds and organ along with standard folk setups, his songwriting genius is a kaleidoscope of shapes and colors and imagery. The Truth About Ants and Aphids is a feast for the mind and ears, vividly painting playful, abstract and distinct pictures and stories, conjuring similar feelings one might experience while contemplating the work of Spanish painter, Salvador Dali. The use of instrumental color and voice, throughout this 12-track gem, is one of exquisite fantasy, yet held together and structured within a singer/songwriter skeleton. Put in simplest terms, this album manages to keep the ears awake and interested for the full duration of the journey; it’s not so much because of the surprises and creative choices (although those certainly don’t hurt) but rather, is based on an inherent feeling of freshness, vitality and zest for those fleeting moments in life worth capturing and freeing.
Recommended if you like The Beatles, Nick Drake, Brian Wilson.
CD price: $10.97 / MP3 price: $8.97