Folk 35 Items

Donald Fagen and Walter Becker are two of the most sophisticated minds in the American Pop idiom. Originally broadcast live on Kmet FM, the famous Record Plant Studio concert was part of the 1974 promotional tour for the band's third album "Pretzel Logic". In front of a small audience and backed by a stellar band featuring classy session players like drummer Jeff Porcaro and keyboardist Michael Mc Donald, Fagen and Becker deliver immaculate versions of classic songs including "Do it Again", "Rikki Don't Lose That Number", and "Reelin' In The Years'' and other gems like "Bodhisattva", and "The Boston Rag".

This is the first vinyl issue of Temple IV, arguably Roy Montgomery’s finest solo album, originally released in 1996 on CD. The original album has been enhanced with two newer tracks that constitute side four of the album. Montgomery states: “The two new tracks recorded in 2018 were about asking the question “Can you step into the same river twice?” Heraclitus said you cannot. I say you can…”

From the original press release:

Few recording artists have aligned the quantity and quality of their releases as well as New Zealand singer /guitarist Roy Montgomery has in 1995. Beginning with kranky’s release of the soundtrack for an imaginary film That That Is...Is(Not) by Montgomery’s duo Dissolve early in the year, a series of superb albums and singles have been issued by a variety of labels across the world. Each one of them is a must have. Most recently, the Drunken Fish label released a collection of pastoral drones entitled Scenes From The South Island, singles have appeared on the Roof Bolt and gyttja labels, and further singles are scheduled with Ajax, Siltbreeze and others.

Temple IV is the first solo recording by Roy Montgomery on kranky. The album was recorded by Montgomery on a four-track tape deck and then thickened up with monophonic moog. The tracks on the album are thick with interwoven guitar lines and moog drone, inspired by the Guatemalan rain forests and the mysterious ruins of the temple and ruins Montgomery visited there.

Roy Montgomery spent the past year in New York, Chicago and London before returning to New Zealand. While in the UK he played live with Flying Saucer Attack and collaborated with spoken word performer Kirk Lake. A brief tour across the United States in September saw him performing before enraptured audiences in New York, Boston, Chicago, Detroit and Los Angeles.

The long overdue recognition of Roy Montgomery as a crucial figure in New Zealand’s musical history as a member of The Pin Group, Shallows and Dadamah, is now augmented by his new recordings. Temple IV will serve to extend and deepen that appreciation.

Heilung don’t play “shows”. They perform a ritual. Christopher Juul, Maria Franz, Kai Uwe Faust and their Nordic collective sweep audiences into rapture with throat singing, primordial rhythms, subtle electronic textures, a mesmerizing light show, an army of warriors and bursts of fire. What better place on earth to experience their ancient ritual than Red Rocks? The world-famous venue - which is located outside of Denver, Colorado, tucked between two giant sandstones - was once home to indigenous tribes. When Heilung performed on October 5th 2021, they recognized this history by inviting Natives to join the prayer that opens all of their rituals. “Remember that we all are brothers. All people, beasts, trees, and stones, and wind. We all descend from the one great being.” What followed was a night that no one would forget. Experience the magic of Heilung’s very first Red Rocks performance again and again on CD and vinyl. CD11. Opening Ceremony (01:03)2. In Maidjan (12:30)3. Alfadhirhaiti (07:23)4. Krigsgaldr (09:04)5. Hakkerskaldyr (03:33)6. Svanrand (03:31)CD27. Norupo (05:42)8. Othan (10:21)9. Traust (09:41)10. Elddansurin (07:25)11. Hamrer Hippyer (13:32)

Heilung don’t play “shows”. They perform a ritual. Christopher Juul, Maria Franz, Kai Uwe Faust and their Nordic collective sweep audiences into rapture with throat singing, primordial rhythms, subtle electronic textures, a mesmerizing light show, an army of warriors and bursts of fire. What better place on earth to experience their ancient ritual than Red Rocks? The world-famous venue - which is located outside of Denver, Colorado, tucked between two giant sandstones - was once home to indigenous tribes. When Heilung performed on October 5th 2021, they recognized this history by inviting Natives to join the prayer that opens all of their rituals. “Remember that we all are brothers. All people, beasts, trees, and stones, and wind. We all descend from the one great being.” What followed was a night that no one would forget. Experience the magic of Heilung’s very first Red Rocks performance again and again on CD and vinyl. CD11. Opening Ceremony (01:03)2. In Maidjan (12:30)3. Alfadhirhaiti (07:23)4. Krigsgaldr (09:04)5. Hakkerskaldyr (03:33)6. Svanrand (03:31)CD27. Norupo (05:42)8. Othan (10:21)9. Traust (09:41)10. Elddansurin (07:25)11. Hamrer Hippyer (13:32)

AJ Lee & Blue Summit are an award-winning, energetic, and technically jaw-dropping bluegrass band quickly rising on the national roots music scene. Based in Santa Cruz, California, the group met as teenagers, picking together as kids at local bluegrass festivals until one day, they decided they would be a band. Their Signature Sounds debut, City of Glass is a spellbinding collection of original songs and covers that’s just as much country soul and gritty, bluesy Americana as it is rock club and festival-ready string band fare, all framed through a California folk lens. City of Glass not only focuses on AJ Lee’s songwriting and once in a generation voice, but also features the Bakersfield sound of guitarist and second lead vocalist Scott Gates on three tracks along with the guitar wizardry and indie rock influence of Sullivan Tuttle, the younger brother of Bluegrass superstar Molly Tuttle.

Over the last ten years, Michael Morley has embraced the acoustic guitar as the means of channeling the darkest threads that have run through his work since the early 1980s. While he largely made a name for himself as a maverick of primitive electric guitar and electronics in The Dead C and Gate, Morley's love of song form has never been far from the surface. In recent years, chance discoveries of Spanish and classical guitar records languishing in the discount and free bins at junk shops in South Dunedin proved to be a revelation. These records, largely recorded in the 1950s and 60s, began to shift Morley's work and lead him to piece together a new musical language from elements completely removed from the rock and avant-garde underground from which he first emerged. Spanish, Mexican and South American composers such as De Fossa, Ponce, Lauro, Barrios, Pujol, Albéniz, Falla, and Villa-Lobos as well as more traditional classical guitar composers like Schubert, Haydn, and Scarlatti all began to etch themselves into his consciousness. Rather than emulate them, Morley "channeled the experience of listening to these strange guitar sounds" as he began to play the acoustic guitar for hours at a time every day as an almost meditative exercise and a way of discovering a new way to play. This new musical language is realized on Pushed Streets, a suite of 12 songs Morley recorded at home in Kōpūtai/Port Chalmers, New Zealand. The music is quiet, almost ephemeral. Chords and melodies are traced in a dark atmosphere with Morley's unmistakable voice almost imperceptibly double tracked, words softly sung and stretched, sometimes at a near whisper. There are no amplifiers, no effects, nothing to distract from Morley's words and the tone of his guitar. Recorded with two 1970s guild guitars, an orchestral six string and dreadnaught twelve string, the guitar sound is rich and dynamic, chords and melodic figures are struck with what sometimes seems the gentlest possible gesture, resonating and floating away into the night. The music and voice, the lyrics are all of that dark thread, distilled with frightening clarity. The music is intimate and fragile, unadorned and heartbreaking in a way that recalls the spirit of lonely and world-weary albums by Skip Spence, Bill Fay, and Loren Connors; yet against the backdrop of the absolute finality of today's culture, the album's alchemy of Spanish and classical influences with Morley's formative work avant garde work, Pushed Streets exists in its own hauntingly desolate realm.

Anime is the 8th studio album of Foivos Delivorias.

Songs that were born in the quicksand of the years 2018-2022, expressing an agitated soul, meek or in ecstasy and with the guitar becoming an extension of it.

Love and latest news, society and the self, violence and giving, war and the child, are some of its windows.

The sound – a happy coexistence of Fivos, his band and the poet-producer Vasilis Dokakis – was captured in the old studios of legendary Finos Film and in a small studio next to The First Cemetary of Athens, so it has several souls on its side.

The title is what it is – it is written in Greek and Latin with the same letters and touches animation in different ways.

Inner Ear releases the album tying it to an informal trilogy with “Aoratos Anthropos (Invisible Man)” and “Kallithea”.

Anime is the 8th studio album of Foivos Delivorias.

Songs that were born in the quicksand of the years 2018-2022, expressing an agitated soul, meek or in ecstasy and with the guitar becoming an extension of it.

Love and latest news, society and the self, violence and giving, war and the child, are some of its windows.

The sound – a happy coexistence of Fivos, his band and the poet-producer Vasilis Dokakis – was captured in the old studios of legendary Finos Film and in a small studio next to The First Cemetary of Athens, so it has several souls on its side.

The title is what it is – it is written in Greek and Latin with the same letters and touches animation in different ways.

Inner Ear releases the album tying it to an informal trilogy with “Aoratos Anthropos (Invisible Man)” and “Kallithea”.

New signing to Basin Rock label who released breakthrough albums by Julie Byrne, Nadia Reid, Aoife Nessa Frances, Jim Ghedi, Andrew Tuttle, Trevor Beales….Limited edition black vinyl with download code.French lullabies and traditional folk songs dating as far back as the 14th century, adapted with contemporary arrangements and faint tape manipulations in Dublin, Ireland.Imagine Serge Gainsbourg, John Martyn and Gábor Szabó squeezed on a small stage in the early hours of a smokey backstreet Parisian jazz club, slowly hypnotising the audience into hypnagogic hallucinations.

Demeters Döttrar is the new trio of Ida Skibsted Cramer, Charlott Malmenholt and Astrid Øster Mortensen. Søndag I Spejlet was mainly recorded in Gamlestaden, Gothenburg between 2022 and 2023 and consists of 8 tracks that lies somewhere in between 90's lo-fi experimental bedroom music and brash text-sound compositions channeled through the ever-inspiring cassette underground.

Listening to Demeters Döttrar is like stepping into a parallel universe; a tiny unexplored corner with paper-thin walls or a very delicate bubble that is about to burst any moment. The instrumentation is sparse and mainly consists of guitar, vocals, prepared tapes and occasional harmonica. The recurrence of rain in different forms throughout the recording almost functions as a percussive backbone at times, the one thing except for the sound of the actual room that sort of keeps it all together.

With one foot in Sweden and one foot in Denmark, the group is utilizing both countries' language in an uncompromising and peculiarly alluring way. The almost brutal intimacy brings the more mellow Deux Filles moments to mind, though music wise this owes more to Un, early Charalambides and at times groups like Dadamah. A daring, major statement and one of the most beautiful, strange and other-worldly debut albums we heard in quite a while.

Mastered by Lasse Marhaug. Gloss laminated covers, comes with insert. Edition of 500 copies.

When Nathan Salsburg's daughter was a baby, he often sang her to sleep ina rocking chair. At one point, he remembered a song he had taught himselfas a teenager: "The Evidence" by Lungfish, the Maryland band who coined asingular brand of post-punk in the 90s and 00s. Salsburg realized he could playthe guitar part with one hand, singing while holding Talya in his other arm. Though theoriginal version of "The Evidence" is only five minutes long, it's essentiallya repetitive mantra, so Salsburg could extend it as long...

Six years after their debut album, Thee Holy Strangers return with their sophomore LP “Diary Of The Shadow”. With a new line-up and a new sound design, they present seven testimonies of an uncertain era and trace its imprints. Drawing on the inexhaustible pool of rock’n’roll, soul and folk, they set up songs for today that speak of resignation and resilience, darkness and light, sadness and hope.

New members of the band are Andreas Lagios (Nightstalker) on bass and Kleon Antoniou (Mode Plagal) on guitar.

“Diary Of The Shadow” includes seven original compositions and was produced by Costas Chrysogelos (Digital Alkemist), Alexis Kalofolias and Dimitris Papanagiotou (Jim Spliff). It was recorded by Costas Chrysogelos and Philip Marinelis at DNA Lab studio in the spring-summer of 2021. The mastering was done by Giannis Christodoulatos at Sweetspot Studio.

The album also features Nikos Fysakis (electric guitar) and Giannis Houstoulakis (pedal steel guitar), members of the group’s previous line-up, Nikos Yousef (musical saw) and Kostis Zouliatis (piano, keyboards, synth).

Thee Holy Strangers are: Flora Ioannidi: Vocals, Alexis Kalofolias (Alex K): Vocals, guitar, Kleon Antoniou: Electric and acoustic guitar, Andreas Lagios: Bass, Costas Chrysogelos: Drums, percussion.

Just three months after the release of the EP “Βεντάλιες Και Σιδερογροθιές (Fans And Iron Fists)”, relentless Mazoha, strikes again with his new album “Τώρα Χορός (Now Dance)”, catching the thread musically, lyrically and emotionally from where he left it on his previous album, “prtthlts”.

As stated by the title and confirmed by the homonymous track and the tracks “Τσιχλόφουσκα (Chewing gum)” and “Ψυχολογικά Τραύματα Social Club (Psychological Traumas Social Club)”, there is an even greater dancing mood, which stems from the thirst for relaxation. Those who have experienced the live gigs of Mazoha know this feeling well. At the same time, in the songs “Ήρωες Πολλοί Αγάλματα Λίγα (Many Heroes Few Statues)”, “Σαν Σκιάχτρο (Like A Scarecrow)” and “New York” the beats, the synths and the vocal lines are typical examples of the dark pop that characterizes his album “Bastardo”. The tracklist is completed with two special tracks: “Ονειρεύομαι Μωρό Μου (Ι Dream Baby)” with the noise-shoegaze intro and the rap stormy vocals, a confessional and denouncing loop that could last forever, and finally “Το Πουτανάκι Σου (Your Little Whore)”, the love song of the album with a chewing gum refrain, flirting dangerously with trash, written to be heard late at night in all bars.

An album of contrasts that dives from despair to redemption and from joy to sorrow, marrying darkness with light. The most Mazoha album so far.

The world is falling apart but Bazooka are here with their fourth album. They take us by the hand on a journey to a world above the earth, a world somewhere else.

With 10 songs and their stories captured via the album artwork designed by Australian artist Montero, they transport us to the dreams and nightmares of modern life.

”Kapou Allou (Somewhere Elsewhere)” is clearly the band’s most entertaining and versatile album, their own truth. Bazooka’s craziness and instinctive energy of Bazooka are still there, but accompanied by a great appetite for experimentation and situations that lead the band to an absolute letting go without any restrictions. The final result is the closest that a studio album can get to the band’s live performing sound and that’s what makes this arguably their best album to date.

Recorded and mixed at Arkadikon Studios by Theodoros and Aggelos Bournas.

Tango with Lions releases her fourth album entitled “you.me.”.

“you.me.” was created in Berlin and recorded in Athens, Greece, between September 2021-January 2022, at Lotus studios with producer Vasilis Dokakis. The nine songs of the album build a tale of reflection on heartbreak and significant life changes, written shortly after the artist’s permanent relocation in Berlin, amid the pandemic.

The lyrics express the need of introspection and of processing the impact of various interactions with different people, time passing and global events. The songs observe, address questions or come to realisations about a different “you”, from the perspective of a different “me” in each tale.

The arrangements are rich in synthesisers, nostalgic bass lines and distinct piano sounds. Some of the songs are built on outgoing beats and instrumentations, other songs are earthly, low-key and acoustic.

Lolek’s fourth album, entitled “Agria (Wild)”, was written in Athens at intervals from 2019 to 2021. Lolek has written the music in nine tracks and has covered the track “Aftos O Anthropos (This Man)” by songwriters Likourgos Markeas and Maro Bizani. He has done all the recordings and mixing, except for the cello and percussion recordings made by Nikos Veliotis, who is co-producer and co-arranger of the album. The mastering was done by Giannis Christodoulatos (Sweetspot Productions).

“Agria” is the sound of turmoil that gives birth to the truth. 10 tracks where lyricism coexists with noise and romance with violent honesty. A confession about the daily life of disappointment, the despair of love, the prison of the family, the game of social acceptance, the self-destructive human nature.

(Psychagogia): 1. the recall of souls (from Hades) by magical means 2. the attraction of souls, the fun, the indulgence.

After 3 english-speaking albums, “Psychagogia (Entertainment)” is Kristof’s first album in his native language.

Associative writing, verses full of images from mythology, movements and sounds direct the listener to relaxation and emotional outburst. The ten pieces transport us to other worlds, interrupting contact with everyday and petty reality.

In combination with eerie vocals and prose, teased pianos and synthesizers, a pure fantasy of the dream is built, creating the impression that within us there is another part of existence, different from the body.

Most of the songs were written during the first quarantine period of 2020 and were completed at the end of it. The album was recorded in 2021 at Lotus studio with producer Vassilis Dokakis. The album’s artwork was art directed by Petros Aronis.

Mπλουμ (Bloom) is the third album in Nalyssa Green’s short but impressive discography. It comes six years after her sophomore “The Seed” and is her first record in her mother tongue.

The ten songs were written in 2015, while most of the album was recorded in 2016 in Lagia, which is her hometown in East Mani. The recordings of the vocals plus additional recordings followed in Athens and the album was completed in the beginning of 2018. Through her intense need to express herself with Greek lyrics, the singer-songwriter not only wins the bet, but manages to strengthen her musical identity.

The songs of Μπλουμ have a double meaning value just like the felicitous album title (Μπλουμ has the same pronunciation as Bloom but in greek slang means plunge. Blooming eerie vocals and dream melodies meet diving-baptisms in the dark bottom of the soul. Personal but at the same time everyday stories that strongly bear the feminine energy of their creator.

The tracks met the most suited sound with the production of Vasilis Dokakis (No Clear Mind). The euphoric artwork was created by Kakia Konstantinaki.

In August of 2012, Jason Isbell and The 400 Unit assembled in their home state of Alabama in front of a couple of sold-out concert halls to record their first live album, Live From Alabama. After years of hard touring, the critically-lauded band has gelled into a versatile rock and roll squad that is equally at ease performing Muscle Shoals soul to hardcore country to balls-out rock. Live From Alabama’s tracklist mines some of Isbell’s most popular songs and includes a pair of inspired covers in Neil Young’s “Like a Hurricane” and Candi Staton’s “Heart on a String.”

This new edition of Soul Jazz Records" classic Delta Swamp Rock features a killer all-star line-up of seminal artists who all first blended rock, soul and country together to create a stunning new sound of southern American music in the 1970s.Featuring the Allman Brothers, Dan Penn, Leon Russell, Tony Joe White, Johnny Cash, Bobbie Gentry, Big Star, Link Wray, Area Code 615 and loads more!

Dizonord is very happy to bring you the reissue of this French 1988 underground self released gem, re-mastered from master tapes!
Dubby, punky, politically engaged new wave with a sense of humour, we've always been touched by the voice of Agnès (bass) and the phlegmatic Michel (machines and graphics). We could have thought the language barrier would have stopped the pleasure of this record but obviously not, as Mobutu song is already an international digger classic!
We really hope you'll enjoy this collection of tracks and collages as we do so, once upon a time...

One reviewer said this about Lavender Daydreams: “Blissed out folk psycher in the vein of Tim Buckley or Dan Fogleberg but waaay more psyched out. Richard has certainly dropped a tab or three in his time. A really, really good album to mind-surf to, and also poppy enough that it would sound good coming out of a boombox in a field while you are throwing the frisbee and smoking some bohoofus.” And they were right—Richard did drop many a tab when writing and recording the album: "The songs ‘Lord and Master,’ ‘Here We Are,’ ‘Sunny Days,’ and several others were inspired by experiences I had on psychedelics. Lavender Daydreams comes from my meditation experiences. ‘Electra’ is about a girl I fell in love with while tripping... I realized my purpose in life I was always looking for was in experiencing the extraordinary perfection in front of me every moment and engaging it in play and fun… This is a common theme in my songs. Celebrating those everyday moments. ‘Falling Angels’ was written about crashing on acid. About when we have to squeeze back into our everyday self and the feeling of “Now that the doors of perception have been blown off their hinges what am I going to do about it.” And that slides right into ‘A Stranger’ where you begin reflecting on it. There you are, crashing, beer in hand, a stranger to yourself. ‘Soaring’ is inspired by lying on our back in the field by the Long Island Sound on spring afternoon tripping on ‘Windowpane’. Mike and I were staring up at the sky and the clouds turned into angels singing and it felt like we were soaring up there free. ‘Soaring’ was trying to capture the rapture.” Edition of 370 copies on black vinyl.