Folk Acid

A counterculture movement united by an expansive, experimental and deeply soulful sensibility, Japan’s rebel protest music challenged the status quo and changed the country’s music industry in the process.
The birth of Japan’s nascent acid folk scene was rooted in the messy and invigorating political climate of the late 1960s. It is a story of Dadaists, communists, pharmacists and cult leaders, led by a young generation of upstart students, artists and dreamers hellbent on turning their world upside down. Born on the campuses of Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka, and centred around newly formed independent label and left-wing stronghold URC, this uniquely Japanese form of folk expression provided an outlet for musicians who were tired of aping Western sounds and instead found ways to sing in Japanese and integrate traditional forms in new ways. At the forefront of this movement was Yellow Magic Orchestra’s Haroumi Hosono, a polymath innovator whose band Happy End released the first Japanese language rock album, and whose influence would go on to be felt across Japanese music for decades. Alongside, and informed by the Kansai scene’s Takashi Nishioka and Happy End collaborator Ken Narita, they experimented with cadences and accents of the Japanese language to open the door for others to experiment with their own forms of psychedelic folk too.

A counterculture movement united by an expansive, experimental and deeply soulful sensibility, Japan’s rebel protest music challenged the status quo and changed the country’s music industry in the process.
The birth of Japan’s nascent acid folk scene was rooted in the messy and invigorating political climate of the late 1960s. It is a story of Dadaists, communists, pharmacists and cult leaders, led by a young generation of upstart students, artists and dreamers hellbent on turning their world upside down. Born on the campuses of Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka, and centred around newly formed independent label and left-wing stronghold URC, this uniquely Japanese form of folk expression provided an outlet for musicians who were tired of aping Western sounds and instead found ways to sing in Japanese and integrate traditional forms in new ways. At the forefront of this movement was Yellow Magic Orchestra’s Haroumi Hosono, a polymath innovator whose band Happy End released the first Japanese language rock album, and whose influence would go on to be felt across Japanese music for decades.

British Acid Folk Underground. First extensive compilation documenting the cult of 70s UK Acid Folk underground. Features such heavyweights as Sallyangie, Sandy Denny, & Pentangle. Castle. 2004.

Compiled by Bob Stanley to document the acid folk scene, “Gather In The Mushrooms” was first issued in 2004 on Sanctuary as a CD-only release; it proved popular enough for a sequel entitled “Early Morning Hush” two years later. This new edition of “Gather In The Mushrooms” contains the cream of both long-deleted compilations with a few additions – COB, Roy Harper, Fotheringay – that weren’t available to Sanctuary at the time. Though they aren’t traditional, these songs have an authenticity of their own, an autumnal atmosphere and a naivety which proved influential in the 00s neo-folk boom (Devendra Banhart, Joanna Newsom, Alasdair Roberts, Tunng et al) but impossible to replicate. For many of these acts at the end of the 60s, folk music and the hippy world that surrounded them was a way of life, a way of opting out from the Vietnam war, Angry Brigade and three-day-week early 70s. Anne Briggs lived in a caravan in Suffolk, Shelagh McDonald lived in a tent, Vashti Bunyan eschewed electricity; they weren’t part-timers. Listening to “Gather In The Mushrooms”, we are transported to a time when no one used the term post-modernist.

Worth a buy on the strength of the rather fetching Czech new wave/pulp fiction-inspired cover alone, which is a typically eye-catching design by Ghost Box’s resident visual genius, Julian House. The music on Beautify Junkyards’ third album offers instant gratification too, as the Lisbon collective strike up a woozy amalgam of esoteric English psych-folk and Brazilian tropicalia. There’s also tinges, of kosmische and an underlying hauntological vibe (this is Ghost Box, remember) adding an eerie, dystopian edge. It’s splendid stuff, but then you’d expect nothing less from a band whose beatific cover versions of Kraftwerk’s ‘Radioactivity’ and Nick Drakes’ ‘From The Morning’ were as dizzyingly good as the originals. And as with their first two LPs, there’s much to love here — standouts include the swirling ‘Sybil’s Dream’, channelling Broadcast’s wistful retro-futurism, and the transcendental Os Mutantes-like ‘Manhã Tropical’. Anything but invisible, it’s a bewitching album that you’ll warm to immediately.

U is a double album by The Incredible String Band released in 1970 on Elektra Records. The music on the album is taken from the Incredible String Band's live mixed-media show of the same name, for which the band had just concluded performances when they recorded the album. The "U" show, which involved pantomime-like dancing along with music, had failed financially. Therefore, in an effort to recoup some of the losses, producer Joe Boyd booked the band for a mere two days in a recording studio to record what became a double album's worth of material. Despite the time constraints (literally 48 hours in which band members switched off in shifts between recording and napping) the album still contains (characteristically) rich overdubbing.

Four CD box set documenting all of Ian A. Anderson's seminal early albums - including lots of rare material. Curated and supported by the artist, Please Re-Adjust Your Time captures an exciting time in British roots music. From gutsy acoustic blues to ground-breaking acid folk, the music sounds as vital today as it did half a century ago. Ian A Anderson is an English folk musician who was a luminary of the late 1960s country blues scene before becoming one of the pioneers of psychedelic/acid folk and founding the now collectable "alternative folk label" Village Thing in the early 1970s. First issued in 1969, 'Stereo Death Breakdown' was credited to Ian Anderson's Country Blues Band, a moniker which hinted at the music therein. Eleven bonus tracks are drawn from Saydisc EPs and Saydisc Matchbox albums. The self-produced Royal York Crescent (1970) album was Ian's first on his new Village Thing label. Here it's joined by three extra recordings from 1969, live at Farnham Folk And Blues Festival and from sessions at Chapel Studios, London. Recorded at Rockfield Studios, A Vulture Is Not A Bird You Can Trust (1971) is now swelled with a quartet of additional sides, again from a studio tenure in Chapel Studios back in 1969. The fourth and final disc is devoted to Ian's final Village Thing album, Singer Sleeps On As Blaze Rages (1972) which is joined by four extra songs, including three previously unreleased the Hot Vultures' demos recorded at Village Thing, Bristol, 1973.