Folk Vinyl Singles 207 Items

Hand-Numbered, Limited to 500. Big Boss Man have produced a hip-Hammond hybrid of 60's R'n'b, Latin, Soul, Bongo-Fuzz and Funk since 1998. As well as playing hundreds of concerts and festivals across the UK, Europe and even Russia, Big Boss Man's music may sound familiar to you, being regularly played on film and television, including Come Dine With Me, Strictly Come Dancing and I Used To Be Famous, and broadcast on BBC Radio, by presenters including Gideon Coe, Cerys Matthews and Craig Charles. Their track 'Party 7' was featured in the international Nike World Football '06 Campaign advert featuring Thierry Henry and Eric Cantana. The entire soundtrack to The Mighty Boosh's Bafta nominated short film "Sweet" was provided from tracks taken from the Big Boss Man's "Humanize" album. The band have performed live on national Spanish television and had tracks included on XFM London Radio and "Later" magazine compilation albums (100,000 plus copies). Big Boss Man's official remix of Modfather Paul Weller's single "The Bottle" went straight in to the UK Top 20, and fast became a collector's item. Know enough yet? Well you'll need to see them live too! Big Boss Man's explosive live shows are legendary. They've been blasting stages since their earlier days in The Loafers, Skooby and Espadrille, amongst a few others. Big Boss Man have released four studio albums, and six 7" singles, and have appeared on countless compilations. This twin-spin 7" single has two new dance floor fillers from Big Boss Man's most recent recordings, and are sure to pack out dance floors across the globe, and further.

Six French Songs is Olivia Chaney’s spontaneous and celebratory review of the French chanson, from medieval ballad to 60s yé-yé pop classic.

Finding themselves with a few spare evenings during a trip to NYC, Olivia and her long term collaborator and producer Thomas Bartlett set themselves the challenge of making an EP. Over two balmy summer evenings at Reservoir Studios (formerly Chic’s studio), they set down as many of Olivia’s arrangements as they could. Playing all the instruments themselves, with haunting violin parts from Sam Amidon, who happened to be in town, these recordings are a celebration of friendship, fuelled by wine, laughter and affection.

Most of the recordings are based on arrangements Olivia worked up over the previous decade, as her French catalogue expanded. After putting her version of Auprès de ma blonde on youtube, a war torn love song arranged unexpectedly with her Indian harmonium, it quickly gained a quarter of a million views. A fan in Lyon sent Olivia a field recording of Montagne, que tu es hautes, which she then recorded to acclaim with Kronos Quartet. L’homme armé, a mystical 15th century chanson, and Marguerite, a sailor’s folksong from the Channel Islands, had found their way into her regular touring repertoire. Ballade is Olivia’s take on Brassens’ setting of Villon’s homage to the brave and iconic women of the past, tinged with the transience of life. Tous les garçons et les filles updates this 60s pop hit into her ravishing and contemporary soundworld.

The distinctive and playful arrangements on Six French Songs frame afresh the unbroken tradition of French chanson–with their ‘formes fixes’ and full-blooded themes of life, death, love and longing.

In 1972, left-wing intellectual film critic Uwe Nettelbeck suggested to Anthony Moore that he might write some straight songs (relatively speaking), which in turn prompted Moore to invite his old schoolfriend Peter Blegvad over to Hamburg to form the band Slapp Happy. Dagmar Krause, a young singer from Hamburg and Moore‘s girlfriend, joined them both on their trip to Wümme to record what was to become this album, Sort of, using Faust as their rhythm section. In honour of this album ́s 50th anniversary the album will get a nicely remastered reissue with the newly founded Week–End Records –the fetsival‘s inhouse label who managed to get the band together for a final reunion shows in November of 2016 and Spring of 2017.

While working on his solo albums, JJulius put together a live band consisting of Clara Flygare (Standard) on drums and vocals, Gustav Danielsbacka (Incipientium) on guitar and Mattias Rörström (Happiest Place Records) on bass. The all star incarnation debuted in Gothenburg in October 2021 and the following year the group recorded a couple of songs in Kungsten. The heavy ballad opener '500 spänn' sort of evokes the spirit of prime time Felt while the angular Ukdiy bizarro blast of 'Sorg I Göteborg' and the late era Skiftande Enheter noddings of 'u2" shows a more energetic side. The galloping, life-affirming instrumental closer 'Vargen' is one of those epics you could easily see the band expand and just doing longer and longer versions of live until it finally takes over the whole set.

45rpm white label 12" with risograph paste-on sleeves and insert. Edition of 490 copies. Mastered by Lasse Marhaug.

Back in 2011 when I was tentatively looking for a second release for my fledging record label Clay Pipe Music, I stumbled upon a mysterious MySpace page by a group called ‘Tyneham House’, the page was decorated with artwork by Rena Gardiner (who was unknown to me at that time) and the music was an otherworldly mix of field recordings, Mellotron and acoustic guitar. It turned out that Tyneham was promised to Glen Johnson’s Second Language label, so I offered to do the artwork, and in January 2012 the two labels co-released it on tape and CD in a cardboard box with a handmade booklet of my illustrations.

In 2016 Clay Pipe reissued it on 10” vinyl, in an edition of just 300, which has since become sort after. The new 2023 pressing is on blue and transparent marbled vinyl, with a reverse board cover and inner sleeve, and the booklet of illustrations has been given a complete redesign. Frances Castle 2023

The pastoral, wistful yet ineffably disquieting music of Tyneham House is made by artists who wish to remain anonymous here, save for their eponymous title. The musicians are happy, however, to let it be known that these recordings have been around for some years (many of them complied from old cassettes) and that they take inspiration from the 1960s/’70s/’80s work of the Children’s Film Foundation – a body who really ought to have made a film about this mysterious West Country curio. At least now we have its endlessly poignant soundtrack.

The small village of Tyneham, on the beautiful Isle of Purbeck, in Dorset, was once a thriving little community – that is until the British Government requisitioned it for training manoeuvres and other ‘strategic purposes’ in the run up to Wwii. This was supposed to be a temporary measure, but the area remained in military possession long after hostilities had ceased, causing distress among former inhabitants, many of whom were farmed out to prefabs in nearby Wareham and Swanage.

Tyneham was characterised by its red telephone box, a tiny parade of shops – Post Office Row – and a grand country pile which stood about half a mile away from the village: Tyneham House. The army removed the building’s oak panelling and ornate decorative details and promptly set about using it for target practice. So great was the shame expressed locally about the damage inflicted upon one of Dorset’s grandest houses that the powers that be decided to grow a copse around the remains of the structure to give the impression that it was no longer there. Despite this, a substantial part of the structure remains intact, including its Saxon hall.

Land access around Tyneham was opened up in the 1970s, but admission to the house remains strictly verboten. Those who’ve been found around the premises, especially anyone wielding a camera, have felt the full weight of military trespass law. Tyneham today is regarded as a nature reserve by some – as a national embarrassment by others. It’s still a political hot potato, in Dorset at least.

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.

Sanam is a free-rock post-folk sextet consisting of Sandy Chamoun, Antonio Hajj Moussa, Farah Kaddour, Anthony Sahyoun, Pascal Semerdjian and Marwan Tohme. The group first formed as part of a performance with Hans Joachim Irmler from the legendary German experimental group Faust, at the Irtijal music festival. Their music and performances are akin to a ritual, a marriage and an exorcism of traditional Egyptian song/Arabic poetry and improvised rock, free jazz and noise. They recorded their first albumAykathani Malakonin a traditional house in the village of Saqi Reshmaya, which was then mixed by Radwan Ghazi Mounmeh (Jersualem In My Heart).

Julie Byrne’s much loved second album Not Even Happiness (2017) added atmospheric instrumentation and electronic flourishes to her unusual guitar tunings and fingerpicked melodies, moving the songs from the front-porch into subtle anthemia. Whether witnessing the Pacific Northwest for the first time (‘Melting Grid’), the morning sky in Colorado after staying up through the night at a house party in the mountains of Boulder (‘Natural Blue’), recording the passage of freight trains on the outskirts of Buffalo, New York ('Interlude'), or a journey fragrant with rose water; reading Frank O’Hara aloud from the passengers seat during a drive through the desert of Utah into the rainforest of Washington State (‘All The Land Glimmered Beneath’), Not Even Happiness is Julie’s beguilingly ode to the fringes of life.

Four new tracks from Philadelphia's Eyes of the Amaryllis recorded in 2021-2022. Following up their debut album Sift released on Horn of Plenty in 2022, the group continues in the same path with their intimate, earthly and very much homespun music. The sublime title track almost resembles a folky Dadamah while some of the other songs are somewhat looser compositions. Eyes of the Amaryllis consists of Goda Trakumaite, Esther Scanlund, Jesse Dewlow and Jim Strong. 45rpm, mastered by Lasse Marhaug. Edition of 200 copies.