Folk Sale 262 Items

Pressed on colored vinyl. Color unknown. Not on label.

Black vinyl, insert

Green Lung are “Britain’s finest folk horror -indebted heavy metalers” (The Guardian), and this is where it all started for the band in 2018. The five track demo recording Free The Witch, including the bonus track When The Axe Comes Down, now reissued on standalone vinyl.

Remastered for vinyl by the spectacular John Davis (Lana Del Rey, Led Zeppelin, Royal Blood…) at Metropolis Studios in the UK and adorned by striking covert art by the band’s perennial collaborator Richard Wells.

It's been a little over ten years since Hailu Mergia reemerged on the international music scene. Following the first in a series of his classic recordings reissued in collaboration with Awesome Tapes From Africa, Mergia assembled a band and began performing live again after many years driving a cab in Washington, DC. His first show back appeared on the front page of the New York Times along with a stellar review and he took off from there performing his flavor of Ethiopian jazz all over the world in the years since, including Radio City Music Hall and Montreal Jazz Festival. Finally, we have a recorded document of the keyboard player's powerful DC-based trio _ which practices each weekend in his basement _ featuring Kenneth Joseph on drums and Alemseged Kebede on bass. Beautifully captured at one of their fiery live shows at the venerable Brooklyn non-profit cultural center Pioneer Works on July 1, 2016, the concert was recorded by PW staff and mixed by Ted Young with mastering by ATFA's expert audio extraction collaborator Jessica Thompson. The performance clarifies what many people across the globe already know: in his fifth decade of music-making Hailu Mergia continues to push the boundaries of his remarkable abilities. Mergia and his veteran band energetically and playfully unpeel layer after layer of harmonic and rhythmic interest out of a spectrum of Ethiopian repertoire. Modern jazz demands constant reinvention and improvisation, night after night creating new works out of known modes and classic standards. This band is unstoppable when it comes to turning age-old melodies (like "Tizita" or "Anchihoye Lene") upside down and inside out until they emerge as molten new works, often spontaneously. Mergia's original compositions (like "Yegle Nesh") shine brighter than ever here as well. Moving from keyboard to organ to accordion to melodica, he deftly switches instruments _ often during the same song. Mergia at 77 years old seems to be working harder than musicians half his age. "Pioneer Works Swing (Live)" brings into focus the kind of onstage group improvisation and deadly solo passages that reach for places Mergia and the band have never gone, on festival and club stages across four continents. Now that Mergia has released two new recordings along with four classic reissues, he is eager to let everyone hear what he's been doing on the road since he re-took the global stage for his victory laps. So much more than an old act from yesteryear, Mergia balances his legendary Ethiopian recordings with good old fashioned sweat-soaked live concert triumphs such as the one we have here.

Debuting on Electric Cowbell Records, comes the first full-length release from Tokyo’s “of Tropique!” A marvelous album full of wonderful and eclectic tropical-infused instrumental tunes. Teppei Kondo’s spirited vintage clarinet often takes centerstage, propelled by a pulsating rhythm section that includes guest spots from guitarist Rolando Bruno and percussionist Mutsumi Kobayashi from Japan’s premier neo-Cumbia group, Minyo Crusaders. The sound of the album is impossible to describe in words, it is lovely throughout, and has a playful, exotic vibe that echoes old cartoon and spaghetti Western soundtracks with a particular Afro-Caribbean flair. “Buster Goes West” is a fearless album filled with lots of turns and twists and a special magic like an imagined voyage through tropical islands where each shoreline reveals a zany new discovery that will leave you wonderstruck. Comes in clear resealable poly bag with Obi strip.

“I went mourning without the sun; I am a companion to owls.”

In the autumn/winter of 2010, Singapore-based April Lee and Ricks Ang of Aspidistrafly (also founders of Kitchen. Label) embarked on the recording of their second album A Little Fable in Japan in collaboration with several artists. Fascinated by the patina of time and themes of folklore, A Little Fable narrates a surrealist procession of tales, twelve compositions simmering one into the other lyrically and picturesquely. This album sees the duo returning to a warm, organic palette of closely-whispered vocals, fingerpicked guitar, string arrangements and their trademark texture-focused arrangements. Featuring guest collaborators Kyo Ichinose, Seigen Tokuzawa, haruka nakamura, Junya Yanagidaira (ironomi), honagayoko, Akira Kosemura, Janis Crunch and more.

A dusty bottom drawer of forgotten memoirs is unlocked, and the album opens with a mourning, solitary cello while a harmonium drone forebodes an oscillating motif of glockenspiel tones, or sprinkled stars if you will. In Landscape With A Fairy, a tale of loss and longing during the earliest dawn mist – the world in its daily transition – is daubed in the hues of intensified sunlight, foliage or shadows, only to be diffused and faded by time, not unlike Andrei Tarkovsky’s polaroids of the Russian countryside. April Lee’s intimate vocals and acoustic guitar gently break the silence of a cold morning, backed by graceful string flourishes arranged by Kyo Ichinose. Kitchen. Label’s very own haruka nakamura and Junya Yanagidaira (ironomi) add harmonizing colors of the guitar and piano respectively.

Tracing the mysterious migration routes of nocturnal animals, Homeward Waltz skips home along a breadcrumbed-path with ephemeral glimpses of forest sights, ornamented by violins and other curious sounds before fulminating into a amorphous guitar drone, as Seigen Tokuzawa’s improvised cello strokes drift and wander with split-second apparitions in the night sky. Sounds of wooden creaks and early morning spoon-in-coffee stirrings permeate the spontaneous atmosphere of Cocina. honagayoko’s quaint and chopped piano phrases waltz with spliced vocals and flute.

Emerging from the darkened foliage into a vast, cryptic hemisphere, the second half of the album teeters on the frailty and transitoriness of the world. A Little Fable’s voyage reaches a turning point by SEA OF Glass. Ricks Ang constructs a prolonged arpeggio of sonorous looping guitar motifs that float in and out of focus, reverberating almost like a narcotic percussion across tumultuous oceans. Now distanced and gauzy, sounds of surging waves open Countless White Moons in a misty indefiniteness, yet held together charmingly by Akira Kosemura’s luminous piano. The elusive narration in Language OF Flowers tells of a deliberate escape from the passage of time with a folkloric enchantress who wordlessly casts her spells. In Gensei, April Lee relates an unspoken anguish in her tender, wavering vibrato while Janis Crunch’s somber piano and chorus vocals loom like a harbinger of death. The last chapter Twinkling Fall, the second track to feature haruka nakamura, now shuts the drawer of secrets, dissipated monochrome colours restored once again to full bloom.

A Little Fable is available on CD and the digital format on 15th December 2011. The physical CD copy comes in a 48-page artbook edition (21 x 15cm) featuring photographs and collages by April Lee and Miu Nozaka, with styling by Rika M. Orrery, who have, from their expeditions during the making of this album, directed a dream sequence around the encompassing atmosphere of a secluded hilltop cottage, a forest hued in the splendor of autumn and distant, rocky shores.

Island Of Lost Souls is the first of four new albums by Roy Montgomery coming out in 2021 to commemorate Montgomery’s forty years in music. His debut release was also Flying Nun’s first, the Pin Group 7-inch from 1981. Roy Montgomery, a pioneer of the NZ underground, believes there is always new sonic terrain to investigate. His latest album for Grapefruit marks forty years of rigorous exploration in which he’s managed to navigate disparate genres, scenes, and atmospheres, always at the forefront of experimental independent music. Island Of Lost Souls follows his acclaimed 2018 LP Suffuse—a novel departure in which he consigned all vocal duties to ambient / experimental peers Liz Harris (of Grouper), Julianna Barwick, Purple Pilgrims, Haley Fohr (of Circuit des Yeux), Katie von Schleicher, and She Keeps Bees. But the veteran evolves again. On this release Montgomery creates resounding, aerial compositions for guitar. Where some might be inclined to relax and lean into their legacy at this stage in a sprawling career, Montgomery’s new music continues to seek and challenge, moving like the eye of a storm. This latest album cries out like a chorus, though there are no vocals on the record. Its tracklist instead builds upon the lonesome and polyphonic dimensions of guitar in order to express universal feelings of communion and isolation, resisting conclusion but never resorting to fatalism. Life is all about navigating these contradictions and everyone is with Montgomery on this island whether they’d like to admit it or not. Here, the artist has created a work of wisdom and grit, a searing beauty, a new masterpiece for an uncertain and restless time.

Here I AM is the first thing. A powerful incantation sung in full choral style at Dartington College of Arts in 1982 and captured on tape, now in 1s and 0s for all eternity. It’s a bold phrase, this assertion of existence, this permanent claiming of space in time; these three words we were made to sing in church, that we used to recite one after another at the beginning of class. Doing so might seem mundane, or easy, but it’s not. What’s easy is not. Not declaring one’s presence, not showing up at all. Claire Bushe, Cathy Frost, Lisa Halse, Cathy Josefowitz, and Mara de Wit showed up, took a side. They called themselves Lining Time. They were here. ANY Woman CAN SAY I’M A Witch, they said. Strike is the album Lining Time made. It plays out like a freedom spell, like liberatory healing magic. Reveling in the power of the voice, Lining Time sing. Not at us, but for us. As if by putting voice to the traumas inflicted by the patriarchy and capital, they could be made right. As if the whole world might join in and sing along, might join in and take action - might join in and strike.There’s nothing exclusive about the music Lining Time made. Like many of the best and weirdest records of the post-punk era, Strike wears its amateurism as a badge of honour, flies it like a flag to rally around. It is inclusive to the extreme. Which isn’t to say anyone could’ve made Strike. That’s the thing. The music preserved here is too weirdly spare and idiosyncratic - and wildly overconfident in the way that only the young and young at heart can be. Sometimes it’s almost protest folk, acappella or accompanied by a single acoustic guitar, as on ‘It’s Possible’. Sometimes schoolroom auxiliary percussion clunks out a cyclical, ritual rhythm, as on the title track. At no point does it feel less than singular. Still, this is music about and for universal sisterhood. It invites solidarity. Take up an instrument for the cause and sing your own song. Time Passes Time Passes Time Passes Time Recorded music often functions like a time capsule. It’s not rare that an album is “lost”. Rather, it’s rare that a work is heard widely at the time it was made. Often, it’s barely heard at all. It just exists somewhere, a cave painting or an ancient piece of graffiti, waiting to be stumbled upon for whatever reason. The reason, in Strike’s case, is a wonderful posthumous exhibition of Cathy Josefowitz’s artwork, The Thinking Body, a cooperative effort between Kunsthaus Langenthal, Centre Culturel Suisse, Paris, Macro Roma, Les Amis de Cathy Josefowitz, and Elise Lammer. It’s possible that some might be tempted to think of Lining Time as a sideshow curiosity to the main event, but that’d be foolish. Strike, nearly forty years old, is as alive and relevant as it was when it was recorded in the wake of the Reclaim the Night march. If anything, it’s shocking how potent and necessary its message remains today.

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.

3 Hürel is a folk rock and psychedelic rock band consisting of 3 brothers from Trabzon, a northern city in Turkiye. The band's guitarist uses a self-made double-handled guitar and reed instrument, which has become a symbol of the band in concerts. What makes the band special is its groovy guitar tone and excellent bass guitar and percussion technique. They have become one of the most important representatives of psychedelic rock in Turkiye. This album was first released in 1974. "Sevenler Aglarmış", "Yara", "Gönül Sabreyle Sabreyle", "Canım Kurban" are their most popular songs

A very bold statement from Idriss himself, this record sees the Franco-Algerian dj and producer infuse his personal history into what he loves the most and share it with the rest of the world. First track Tsakhbira works as the perfect opener for the album with a melodic ambient-like mood and Arabic chants, with second track Beld el fen following in the same vein with traditional instruments interspersed with synth stabs and eerie atmos. Chazil’s upbeat rhythm spices up the vibe, a mix of ethereal singalongs and bouncy percussions. Mohamed is the first foray into Electronic territory, a downtempo piece featuring French vocals and plenty of analog industrial clanks that lead into subsequent Hey Galbi, an exquisite melodic house number with acid synth melodies and piano keys. Electro (Leila Moon Remix) delves into more experimental landscapes, with darker tones, blurred vocals and pulsating beats, while Elf Leila is quintessential Electroclash Arabic music, blending these two genres together, with a syncopated super catchy bassline. Closing track Harramt is a whirlwind of snare rolls, 303 arpeggios and nods to North African heritage sounds.

“I’m still learning how to experience joy, how to be free, how to be comfortable in my own skin,” says Jaime Wyatt. “A lot of us grow up feeling like we have to hide who we are just to be accepted, but that comes from a place of fear and judgment. I wrote these songs as a way of letting go of all that, as permission to feel good.” Feel Good, Wyatt’s extraordinary new album, is more than just a permission slip, though: it’s an invitation. Recorded with Black Pumas’ Adrian Quesada, the record is bold and ecstatic, built on tight, intoxicating grooves that belie the songs’ substantial emotional stakes. Wyatt’s writing is raw and intuitive here, tapping into the deep recesses of her subconscious as she reckons with grief and growth, and her delivery is visceral to match, cutting straight to the bone with equal parts sensitivity and swagger. Taken as a whole, the collection stands as a radical act of creative liberation from an artist already known for pushing limits, a genre-defying work of healing and self-love that tips its cap to everything from Al Green and Otis Redding to Waylon Jennings and Bobbie Gentry in its relentless pursuit of peace and pleasure.

This incredibly rare release predates their more widely-known second album, Mice and Rats in the Loft. This is superb psych-folk dated 1969. The Jan Dukes De Grey started out as a duo of two multi-instrumentalists, Michael Bairstow and Derek Noy, who stood midway between Tyrannosaurus Rex and Jethro Tull with very short all-acoustic songs with strange lyrics. Similar to early Incredible String Band or Mark Fry, with a touch of Comus weirdness. A mixture of trippy and stoned songs and instrumentals with eastern feel. A unique album. One of the most brilliant acoustic experiments of folk-psych-prog rock ever.

Mustafa Özkent made this eclectic ‘’psychedelic Sampling’’ album for sixtieth year of his musical adventure. He wanted to create a new & modern sound with sample instruments and live solos in his studio. Basically recorded modernized short melodies of traditional Turkish folk music combined with additional melodies and solos he composed. He played all the sample instruments and live solos with his electric guitar, fretless guitar and his new special instrument Saztar which is combination guitar and saz. As always, DR.FRANKESTEIN! Synthesized Turkish traditional folk music with psychedelic funk, jazz, rock, blues solos arranged, performed, recorded and mixed by Mustafa Özkent himself.