Folk Sale 249 Items

The first volume of San Francisco Moog: 1968-72 introduced the world to a trove of recordings from a little-known hinge point in electronic-music history. Vol. 2 brings to light the rest of tapes—and the rest of the story.

In 1968, Bay Area native Doug McKechnie got hold of one the very first modular Moog synthesizers ever made and began finding his own way to play it. Soon, he was hauling the finicky instrument around to perform improvised concerts at colleges and psychedelic ballrooms, as well as an ill-fated appearance on the bill at Altamont. Some of the performances were recorded, and the surviving tapes—never before released—capture a free-flowing, transportive sound that fills in the gap between the austere mid-century academic avant garde and the expansive cosmic suites of Tangerine Dream and the rest of the Berlin School in the ’70s.

Vol. 2 captures a wider range of sounds and moods, encompassing austere sonic experiments, early sequenced pulses, and melodic etudes.

“These pieces represent amazingly fully formed early approaches to the very idea of musical synthesis...arresting even to modern ears.” — Goldmine

“Presages both Tangerine Dream’s soundtracks and, in its most grimy moments, Acid Tracks.” — The Wire

Reverse board tip on with silver pantone print. The first ever reissue of Dorothy Carter's 1978 folk/psych/drone masterpiece. A truly unique album in Dorothy's catalog of otherwise traditional psaltery folk music, Waillee Waillee's essence sits in the confluence of Dorothy's mastery of the dulcimer; its shimmering notes fully enmeshed with the tremulous, cavernous drones of Bob Rutman's bowed steel cello. The core of this album, Dorothy's only with a full band, lies in the contradiction of traditional psych-folk idioms and the minimal avant-garde, referencing Henry Flynt and Laraaji as much as Karen Dalton. This LP version includes 12 page booklet with unpublished manuscripts, drawings, photographs, and songbooks of the songs from the album, as well as extended liner notes from friends and family of Dorothy Carter, including notable musicians such as Laraaji, Bob Rutman, and Alexander Hacke (of Einstürzende Neubauten). Drops soon - a joint release between Palto Flats & Putojefe Records.

Dorothy Carter was many things - a virtuoso player, storyteller, historian of Celtic and Appalachian folk music, avid lifelong busker, avant-garde musician, and itinerant troubadour, laying a framework for music that existed both within and outside of standard folk idioms - never better represented than on her 1978 masterwork, Waillee Waillee. Underscored by Bob Rutman’s cavernous bowing of the steel cello, the richness of Waillee Waillee’s sound produces an album unlike any other in her discography. In particular, its two side-ending pieces, “Summer Rhapsody” and “Tree of Life,’’ glide with the shimmering filigree of hammered dulcimer and Dorothy Carter’s ephemeral voice floating over Rutman’s droning buzz of the steel cello. The elements of these two tracks suggest something akin to a transcendental Appalachian raga or whirling cosmic folk music, an effortless combination that serves to add additional substance to the remaining tracks on the album.

The title track is one of her most enduring compositions, often performed in stripped down versions throughout her career, and one of her sole recordings featuring a full band, with the contrapuntal interplay of tremulous flute, vibrating steel cello, bass and drums. Lyrically and tonally, her voice would never sound as stirring and refi ned as on this, her most outwardly accessible song.

She counted musical colleagues as diverse as Constance Demby, Einstürzende Neubauten and Laraaji, as well as her lifelong artistic partner and friend Bob Rutman, whose imprint is felt throughout the grooves of this record. The master tapes for this recording were fortuitously discovered in Rutman’s Berlin studio, many, many years later. As recounted in Laraaji’s contribution to the liner notes, Dorothy was “someone who really influenced my early zither exploration and vocabulary and inspired my shift toward hammered zither performance and recording,” after encountering him busking on the sidewalk one day in the 1970s. Later, when living in Berlin in the early 1990s, Dorothy would begin work on manuscripts detailing the history of the dulcimer family and providing extensive sheet music, selected material of which is reproduced in the twelve page booklet included with this release. Dorothy would find later success touring and performing in the late 90s with the ensemble Mediæval Bæbes, which she led with British musician Katherine Blake, playing a prominent role on their first four albums.

A special 7 inch single presentation of the classic Donovan tracks (The Tinker and the Crab / Wear Your Love Like Heaven) taken from his seminal double album A Gift from a Flower to a Garden.

Die Welttraumforscher is an enigmatic Swiss musical and artistic project. Active since 1981, when the first cassette came out on Das Moniflabel, they have an archive with more than 30 albums, but also stories, films and fanciful illustrations. Die Welttraumforscher is a sonority exploration that translates energy and sounds from outer space. Its music is the transfiguration of the Galaxy’s complexity and its inspection audio-graphics includes, and give us, the space connections as pure melody. Like a game, it makes us partake of the power of the expression and the World and Celestial bodies’ mysteries. Perpetually in a journey, die Welttraumforscher tells us how there’s always something to discover inside and outside of ourselves. Folklore des Weltalls 2 comes out for his 40th artistic anniversary, with two songs for every celestial body in our solar system, including Pluto and the Moon; on the A-Side a so-called "Dance Song" and on the B-Side a "Dream Song". The songs appear on the record in the same order in which the bodies circle around the Sun. That means that the centre of the record (the label) represents the Sun, and is surrounded by the planets and other bodies, giving us a map of our solar system as we look at the record. 20 new (instrumental) songs, from die Welttraumforscher are included, giving an extraordinary glimpse of the recording work of die Welttraumforscher in their hidden studio. It is deeply connected with one of their favourite ideas: that outer space and especially our solar system is full of music which is only waiting to be discovered. Isti mirant stella (these men wonder at the star). Love is gravity.

Silkscreen print by Legno.

Diane Cluck Co-Produced Her Eighth Album Alongside Multi-Instrumentalist Colin Killalea. "It's The First Album I've Recorded In My Adopted Hometown Of Charlottesville, Virginia, And I Let Sounds Of The Region Influence Its Making And Bend My Songwriting. I Wanted To Collaborate, And To Focus On Deep Emotion Including Golden-Yellow Joyful. I Wanted To Make An Album That Honored My Family And Could Resonate With Young And Old." Spaciously Arranged Instrumentation Highlights The Strength Of Diane's Lyricism And Signature Vocal Style, Described By Npr As "Turning A Pitch Wheel With One Hand And A Tone Knob With The Other." The Album Features An Array Of Accompanying Musicians Including Longtime Collaborator Isabel Castellvi On Cello, John D'earth On Flugelhorn, Michelle Oliva On Bass Clarinet, John Ashley Murphy On Harmonica, Brian Caputo On Drums And Curtis Fye On Bass. Diane And Co-Producer Colin Killalea Each Play Piano, Guitar, Drums And Percussion. Common Wealth Deftly Weaves Disparate Elements Of Old-Time Music, Classical, Folk, Jazz Improvisation And Church Hymn Into Something Uniquely Vibrant.

New York City based songwriter Gary Canino, submits to you a generous collection of country-inflected music under the Dark Tea moniker that honor the past while looking ahead. There is, as they say, a little something for everyone. With Dark Tea, Gary emerges as a scientist does from her lab, having cracked the formula. The formula? Honor the listeners desire for both danger and comfort. And so, when a melody starts to wander from the marked trail, Gary soothes the listeners ear with a simple one-four (Variable Reward). And so, when ambling verse figure disorients the listener, it repeats until she feels at home in it (The Birds Nest). And so, a long verse finds punctuation in a tasteful punchy chorus (No Notifications). The album also contains no fewer than three truly great guitar solos, including one from Meg Duffys Hand Habits on Rollin Back The Dial. Mixed by Jarvis Taveniere (Woods), mastered by Mikey Young (Total Control).

Part fantastical historic sonic biopic, part anthropologic journey into the deep roots of Belgium’s monstrous cosmic rock sound, this wholly individualistic concept album combines the lead members of the mighty COS (Daniel Schell and Pascale Son) with studio genius Alain Pierre (Ô Sidarta/Des Morts) and celebrated Dutch progressive rock singer Dick Annegarn, for what many consider to be both the overlooked hiding place of Belgium’s deepest psychedelic moment and European prog’s lost map to the ‘Franco-Flemish Boom’.

Emerging from the wider musical family that counted Marc Moulin, Placebo and Marc Hollander amongst its creative kin, Daniel Schell’s most profound conceptual project ambitiously combines the tale of the heroic historical figure of Count Egmont, while simultaneously tracing the evolution of the ud, or oud, (‘the grandfather of the guitar’) in this multifarious hallucinogenic epic. Featuring key members of other collectable groups such as drummer Felix Simtaine from Solis Lacus and bass player Jean-Louis Baudoin from the mythical Classroom (cos predecessor), this best-kept secret vinyl release also harbours the voices of Dirk Bogaert (of Belgian hard rockers Waterloo) as well as Catalan singer Ilona Chale (Marc Hollander/Aksak Maboul) before her later tenure as the COS front woman.

Initially released in 1978 via Zeuhl school distributors Free Bird alongside French pressings of Don Cherry, Jacques Thollot and CAN, it is plain to understand the niche nature of this maligned “lost Cos” LP as it finally blooms from between the cracked branches of European jazz-rock-synth-psych-prog-pop history… and beyond!

»This River Only Brings Poison« was released in 2002 as the sixth full-length album of Chris Hooson’s Dakota Suite project. This first-ever vinyl edition of the record includes four bonus pieces and makes it possible for fans to re-evaluate one of the most crucial Dakota Suite albums in the project’s vast discography while also providing new listeners with an entry point into its intricate musical cosmos. »This River Only Brings Poison« turns out as a sonically rich and stylistically versatile as it is emotionally multi-layered.

Progressive folk act Comus was a true one-off, their unique take on folk rock a spine-tinglingly shocking one, even as the music draws the listener into singalongs. Formed by singer-guitarist Roger Wootton with some art school mates, including guitarist Glen Goring, violinist Colin Pearson and oboist Rob Young, Comus began recording their debut LP for RCA, who dropped them halfway through, leading to further recordings for Dawn with Barry Murray. Every song on this single bears the hallmark of their exceptional take on folk rock, too far ahead of its time to gain favour on release, and all the more to savour now.

Raï is the music of a youth hungover from Algeria's recent independence. It became a space for a liberated, transgressive dialogue that told the social truths of its time -- an up-front yet poetic voice that covers the taboos and frustrations of daily life, expressing emotion without detour. This voice is heard at weddings, cabarets, in the nightclubs of the Oranese coast, and casually on the street... With the boom of the audio cassette, an avalanche of raï tapes were produced in Oran and diffused all over the world. Both women and men sang and listened to the new sound, as raï is intimately tied to parties, alcohol and the night. With the spontaneous improvisation of its singers as the main part of each song, raï keeps reinventing itself. In this style, Cheb Hasni, along with Cheb Nasro, incarnates a second generation of musicians. With the "love raï", or sentimental raï, Hasni sings about love, passion and its setbacks -- moving away from the bittersweet daily chronicles of the first chebs and chebates. Having recorded nearly 150 cassettes, Cheb Hasni remains one of the most prolific and talented raï singers of his generation. Almost thirty years after his death, this three-volume compilation of rare tracks from his cassette releases on the Oriental Music Production label is a tribute to the lasting legacy of Cheb Hasni -- ya raï!

This newly compiled collection of recordings from rockabilly pioneer Charlie Feathers showcases the influential Memphis performer’s work at Sun Records (and related labels). Feathers started his musical career as a session musician at Sun Studios under Sam Phillips. His theatrical, hiccupping vocal style inspired a later generation of rock vocalists, including Lux Interior of The Cramps and Tav Falco, who contributed extensive liner notes and photos for the insert of this release.

The album is composed by Cerys Matthews with Hidden Orchestra and features 10 UK poets: MA.MOYO, Raymond Antrobus, Lemn Sissay, Liz Berry, Anthony Anaxagorou, Adam Horovitz, Cia Mangat, Imtiaz Dharker, Kim Moore and Kayo Chingonyi “We are living in extraordinary times, I wanted to respond but had the urge to offer more than one voice, more than one perspective. Not an echo chamber” – Cerys Matthews. In February 2020 Abbey Road studios welcomed each of the 10 poets to record pieces from their collections. Then lock down hit…. But remotely and with the additional help of field recordists and musicians around the world, Cerys and Joe Acheson (Hidden Orchestra) created a sound journey for these poems with the theme of: Genesis: Birth, heritage, a journey about to begin.

Carter Tanton Has Been Performing And Recording Music Since The Age Of 15. Over The Years, Tanton Has Toured And Recorded With Numerous Artists Including Marissa Nadler, Strand Of Oaks, Lower Dens, And The War On Drugs. In 2012, He Assembled Freeclouds, His First Collection Of Songs For Western Vinyl. A Couple Of Years Later, Tanton Moved To England Where He Wrote All Of The Songs On His Sophomore Solo Album Jettison The Valley, Which Featured Vocal Contributions By Nadler And Sharon Van Etten.Carter Tanton On His New Self-Titled Album: "I Recorded These Songs From May To September 2017 In My Childhood Home Which Had Been Sitting Empty On The Market For Nearly A Year When I First Brought Over A Microphone And Laptop, Guitar And Piano. I Set Up In My Parents Old Room Because It Had The Best Sunlight And Quietest Electrical Grounding But From The Start An Allegorical Quality Ran Underneath Any Surface Level Pragmatism I Told Myself Was Guiding Things. (...) The Records Which Haunt Me Are The Ones Which Have A Definitive Feeling Of Time. "Plastic Ono Band", Cat Power's "Covers Record", "Seventeen Seconds", The Blue Nile's "Hats" And Lewis' "L'amour" All Seem...

“Caroline No’s third album was built around a set of songs I was writing in the summer of 2019. I built the songs around real events, but looped these narratives into stories from song histories. The result is like an intersection of Brill Building characters such as Carole King and Neil Sedaka with the bedroom fanaticism of historical music projects like Virgin Insanity. After a year of playing the songs live in various formations, we aimed to record in the Australian summer. We knew Jim [White] (Dirty Three, Crime & The City Solution, Venom P. Stinger, etc) was going to be in Melbourne, and soon after he arrived in Australia, we met at Mick [Turner]’s (Dirty Three, Venom P. Stinger, etc) studio. Nick [Imfeld] and Mick engineered, with Ian [Wadley] (Small World Experience, Mad Nanna, etc) on bass, Jim on drums, Mick, Dee [Hannah] and me [Caroline Kennedy] on guitars, and Dee and me singing. The sense of intuitive knowledge and performance was exhilarating as we played. We spent two days in the studio, and when we listened back later, it seemed a compelling representation of what had happened, captured live. “The band on this album are artists I grew up with. We were friends first, and engaging with the material, there was no formal structure to follow. Our interpretive approach meant the songs grew from simple structural frames and narrative poetics into full sonic landscapes, engaging across pop, folk, psychedelia and improvisation. Caroline No became—for this iteration—a shifting sonic space tied to intimacy, musical conversation and relationship, expressed in an open improvisatory way. The sound of the record is the result of trust, responsiveness and mutual knowledge. “The name Caroline No was an imaginary character through much of the work, arising from the Beach Boys’ melancholic paen to encountering a past lover who has cut her hair off. My idea was for Caroline No to become the locus for an ongoing composition project where I would write back into songs’ history the perspective of patriarchal song’s subjects. “This is a recuperative project of easeful making; attempting reclamations of lost narratives, exploring love, loss and the psychedelic of the everyday.” —Caroline Kennedy

Carl Erdmann’s Bizzarrophytes was recorded in Roswell, New Mexico, during the final years of the 70’s. A desert-fried haze of buzzing sitar raga, shimmering guitar soli, and lonesome instrumental psych. Erdmann had been galvanized several years prior by witnessing an intimate performance by Ravi Shankar at Austin’s University of Texas. Erdmann spent the next several years with a sitar in the back of his pickup truck - teaching himself the instrument between stints working on an oil field as a geologist.

After settling in Roswell, Erdmann procured a Tascam 4-track reel to reel tape machine and began to experiment with recording. He played most of the instruments himself, and followed a fresh muse each day. One day his recordings would mine the same instrumental guitar territory as Leo Kottke and John Renbourn, like on Bizzarrophytes’ opening track, Majesty. The next day Erdmann might multi-track some bass and drums and end up landing in the same hazy psych-folk territory as Relatively Clean Rivers, as evidenced on album standouts Turritella Flats, and Portugal. And then, perhaps his Ravi Shankar influence would shine through, and he’d deliver a stirring sitar raga like Dhun. Erdmann explored all of these sounds without ever considering releasing them into the world. He was simply experimenting with his equipment and his instruments, and flexing his muscles with whatever kind of inspiration happened to strike. It wasn’t until 1980 that a friend convinced Carl to assemble some of these recordings into an album and self-release it.

Bizarrophytes was released in a miniscule private press run, financed and distributed by Erdmann himself. Most copies didn’t make it out of the southwest. And it has remained woefully hard to find until now. The disparate sounds of Erdmann’s experimentation hang together as a beautifully cohesive tapestry of home-brewed psychedelic folk. A menagerie of eclectic instrumental experimentation, baked in the desert sun, and captured to tape. Morning Trip Records is proud to present Bizzarrophytes.

Featuring current/former members of Light The Fuse And Run, Wow, Owls!, Weak Teeth and Jesuscentric, Best Practices is a return to the fundamentals of punk rock. On the band's Tiny Engines debut, The EP LP, the quartet lets loose a whirlwind of (garage power pop) punk fury. Recorded with Will Killingsworth (Orchid, Ampere) at Dead Air Studios, Best Practices pummel their way through 9 songs in 12 glorious minutes. The band comes close to careening off the edge at points but never seem to overtake themselves. Chock full of razor sharp hooks Best Practices lays down a furious gauntlet that is as catchy as it is exhausting. All your left with as The EP LP fires towards the finish line is the feeling that you just want to do it all over again.

Extremely rare, under the radar afro-psychedelic LP from South Africa. This mysterious band was produced by African funk master, composer, guitarist and producer Almon Sandisa Memela, who was active since the mid 1950s, first as a musician and guitar teacher and then also as a producer. He is famous for his 1970s Afro funk works Funky Africa and the very sought after Broken Shoes.

Action features a cool mixture of incipient afro-funk and garage pop/psych, with one of its songs having been compiled on the famous Next Stop... Soweto compilation series that helped ignite the current fever for African music.

Riyl: Ofege, Blo, Aktion, The Apostles, Sjob Movement, Soweto and the likes.

First ever vinyl reissue, reproducing the original sleeve artwork and with remastered sound. 500 copies only.