‘Howl’ is Cornish for ‘Sun.’ How brillliant is that? If you’re open to a sentence with mixed languages, it gives a whole twist to the ‘howl at the moon’ phrase. What’s Cornish for moon? I really like Daisy Rickman. This is a most excellent coninuation of what she did on her debut, and she does it all herself. Her compositional instincts are just fabulous, I think. So I’m listening to this on Easter Sunday, late morning / lunchtime, and it suits perfectly, but I bet it’ll suit loads of other times and contexts just as well ..read more

Let’s be honest, I don’t think I need to describe this, do I? Title and picture tells it all. For fans of The Iditarod, Meadowsilver, Orchis, Haress, and any other folk thing I put on this blog, and any other folk thing that’s a bit, y’know, haunted. I have been intending to post some things that I bought but keep getting lost in other things. Some of them are even a return to the rock music shenanigans. But also drone and pipes ..read more

Daisy Rickman has quite the portfolio. As well as this here music what she does, she is also involved in artwork (look at that cover), film and photography. And she’s still a whippersnapper. I’m looking forward to where she goes on her creative journey. So this album of hers is probably best described by one of the comments on the bandcamp page – exactly the sort of music you’d expect to hear from a remote Cornish village called Mousehole. It’s got a haunted folk feel, and has very trancey moments (especially the opener) so obviously ticks my boxes. I haven’t been to Cornwall for 23 years (ba ..read more

This is definitely a ‘sun is out’ album, with the caveat that the sun was out when I listened to it and I haven’t tried it on a cold dark winter night. Maybe its good then too. The descriptions of the band’s locale and practice reminds me slightly of some of the worlds that I visit when reading J.G. Ballard short stories though not as downright odd. The music itself is nicely pastoral, the phrase ‘earthy psychedelia’ is actually quite apt, and you know how eager I am to snark at music descriptions. I particularly like Nuska and Description of a Certain Sound, they quite distracted me from my ..read more

Now, we all know that Assumption is the Mother of all Fuck-ups. However, piqued as I am by unusual artist names, I find myself assuming that they probably formed on an 18th of May. Otherwise, why that day in particular? Unless they pulled a date out of a hat. Depends if they have a hat. Most people have hats. I have a hat. Actually, 3. I count a baseball cap as a hat. Otherwise its 2. They’re no longer active as an artist. I wonder if the date they decided to not be active – if decided they did – was the same, or different? Or did they pull that out of a hat as well? These are important ques ..read more

…buy today. I’ve released my ‘thou shalt not buy anything non-essential’ shackles just enough to buy the Haress album. Bandcamp is foregoing their usual cut to help artists, see. I will shortly be working from home, which does have some positives. The one big one is that I can catch up on some of the almost infinite amount of music out there that is really worth listening to, which is more than I can imagine. I could invite you to go through my post history for some wonderful music, and indeed you have that option. But, you know what? Use serendipity. Find something by just looking round. And ..read more

A younger me would probably have reacted with disbelief at the thought that folky music would end up comprising so many very favourite releases as my life went on, although hopefully said younger self would have had the sense to imagine the gradual opening of the mind, both musical and otherwise (well, the one usually insists on the other following it). So Meadowsilver join with Espers, Horse Cult, Laughing Eye Weeping Eye, Haress, The Iditarod, etc in making really good folk inspired hypnosis. I like being in a trance. It may be that they or some of them used to be The Hare and The Moon, no ..read more

This album so makes me wish I had the money to buy it, it’s wonderful. Maybe it’s time to try out this St. Expedite lark? Would need to learn to make pound cakes. What even is a pound cake ..read more

This is unbelievably good psychedelic folk, for want of a better term. There’s elements of americana in some of the tracks and most of the reference points I can think of are probably US based, but Haress is based in Shropshire. Also, someone from Hey Colossus plays somewhere on this album and I fancy I can hear that influence but maybe I is trying too hard. Lurgee still lurking, see. The artist picture they use at the top of their bandcamp page is well good, too ..read more