Folk 296 Items

Peter Oren's new album The Greener Pasture offers a bleak answer to the question "where will I go/ if I don't want to be/ with idle hands awaiting catastrophe/ here in the Anthropocene" posed on his title track of his previous album Anthropocene: "The greener pasture is also fenced in/ the wider trough has an asterisk/ rotate the herd every few days/ or is it every few years/ we got their tags on our ears/ standing in shit crying bovine tears." Indiana-born, everywhere-based singer-songwriter Peter Oren possesses a remarkable singing voice, low and deep and richly textured: as solid as a glacier, as big as a mountain. Similar in its baritone gravel to Bill Callahan, a hero of his, it rumbles in your conscience, a righteous sound that marks him as an artist for our tumultuous times, when sanity seems absent from popular discussions.

Why you'll love it...
Much of Montevallo was deceptive in its simplicity, hiding era-defining songwriting talent and a whole new mode of country crossover behind a seemingly easy-to-replicate formula of marrying traditional country instruments with programmed beats and slick, dynamic melodies. Its velvet revolution won Hunt years of radio dominance and anticipated a tidal wave of what’s been termed “boyfriend country” — legions of imitators who took the singer’s gently flirtatious tack and R&B influences to their cloying extremes. Plenty in Nashville didn’t see Montevallo as a changing of the guard, and even after he’d become a country megastar wrote him off as either a novelty, insufficiently capital-C Country, or both. When confronted with resistance about his own mode of widening country music’s lens Hunt has tended to return to the root of the issue, which runs much deeper than a simple disdain for pop music in country or concern about preserving some of its imagined “authentic” past.

Why you'll love it...
High Top Mountain certainly leaned traditional, but it also set the precedent that Simpson was not an artist content to coast, was not someone just trying to write the easiest song to ride to the top. He was willing to put in the work, and hire $25,000 worth of studio time and band members to make his vision a reality, and didn’t very much care what happened next. Only that he’d done it. Freedom, as a famous country singer once wrote for Janis Joplin, is just another word for nothing left to lose. The most free performer we’ve had these last 10 years is Simpson, who took a trip to High Top Mountain and never came back down.

Why you'll love it...
Richard Thompson's Music from Grizzly Man accompanies the acclaimed documentary, Grizzly Man, following the life and death of Timothy Treadwell, a documentary filmmaker, environmentalist and bear enthusiast.

This VMP exclusive record is pressed on 1LP standard weight Smoke vinyl at Independent Record Pressing. This reissue is remastered by Bob Olhsson. Limited to 1,000 copies, Music from Grizzly Man will arrive in a foil stamped and numbered gatefold tip-on jacket.

The third album from Paul Baribeau. Baribeau has been referred to as many things: American singer songwriter, troubadour extraordinaire, man with beard, reclusive hermit, photographer, Paul, Spotify hero, and creator of the City of Beachgrass newsletter. One guy, one acoustic guitar, and a live-in-one-take, personal approach. The songs deeply affect those that care. His three albums, long out of print, are much sought-after by, well, someone or other. “If you know, you know.”

- Steve Gunn's first album with a band, featuring John Truscinski and Justin Tripp- His most affecting, accessible, and articulate work of pure songcraft to date, with a new emphasis on vocals- Available on virgin vinyl, in a deluxe, limited edition, as well as on CD and digital formats- Vinyl edition features matte, tip-on jacket, full-color inner sleeve, and digital download coupon- CD housed in heavy matte gatefold wallet- Package features artwork by Anthony Campuzano, Constance Mensh, and Justin TrippIn the city we're all angling for Quittin' Time, laboring along and among the hours, searching and scheming for the sweet sound of those two easy words: Time Off. It's something you take-or sometimes steal, like a thief or a baserunner-but seems you can never get enough of it. It's regulated, rationed, and billed by volume, like water or electricity or ice cream. Sometimes you have to beg the boss for more, or even for a trifling taste. So let's make time! Let's roll the dice and get these old bones out on the road again. Steve Gunn's new album imagines the fugitive moments afforded us during time off, out, and away as occasions for dilatory investigations into our immediate environments and interiors. Time Off (PoB-08) showcases the virtuosic guitarist and songwriter's oblique character sketches and story-songs, some of which, like "Lurker" and "Street Keeper," portray specific denizens of his Brooklyn neighborhood. "Old Strange" celebrates Jack Rose, a dear and departed friend and muse. Those contemplative studies frame Gunn's most affecting, accessible and articulate work of pure songcraft to date. His definitive statement as a songwriter, Time Off represents the culmination of nearly fifteen years of stylistic experimentation as a solo artist, a member of GHQ and the Gunn-Truscinski Duo, and more recently, as a guitarist in fellow Philadelphia-bred troubadour Kurt Vile's touring band the Violators. Gunn's first eponymous album with a full band, Time Off harnesses a core trio format to...

Archival reissue of the Afro-prog-psych Zamrock masterpiece Presented For The First Time Ever In An Aged Copper Green Pressing The entirety of WITCH’s fourth album, restored and remastered from master tapes, and presented as an archival reissue in an aged copper green vinyl pressing. WITCH’s musical arc is contained to a five year span and, in retrospect, it is a logical one. The band’s fourth album - recorded after the band toured with Osibisa - makes use of traditional Zambian rhythms and folk melodies alongside progressive rock movements. It is the most "afro-rock" of WITCH’s oeuvre.

Ed Askew has been in NYC for 30 years. A few years ago he moved from Washington Heights in Manhattan to Ridgewood in Queens. And starting next month, he will be in Bedford Stuyvesant in Brooklyn.During all this time, Ed developed a home recording method which is very nuanced and at the same time concise. Ed’s harpsichord, tiple, synth and a muscular use of Pro Tools all play a role. His lyrics are on a whole new level; and his voice is his own. 2020 Seven Songs is his most recent home recording and the first one made this year.“Starting in January, “coffee in the afternoon, chocolate cake and copper pennies” -- the album begins by looking forward to less difficult times, warm weather and days at the beach.2020 is an experimental piece that talks about young bands and continues an optimistic thread.Make a Wish evokes a certain reconciliation with lost love. You’ve experienced this. We are in February.In March, I am holed up in my apartment. I make another song; watch TV and contemplate the passing time, romance, and make some small paintings.144 is a short piano piece, I play it on my classic Alesis synth.The beginning of March brings to mind San Francisco memories as I watchquarantined musicians play from home.It seems that I am “waiting for the end of time” at the end of March. I’m working on songs and painting a bit. I remember 1967 and the time I spent in Harlem after I moved to New York as I hear late night ambulances on my street.”Ed Askew, NYC, 2020