Strange Folk

Ireland's answer to the Incredible String Band, Dr. Strangely Strange engaged in the same type of psychedelic acoustic music with folksy arrangements. With traditional instruments like penny whistle, fiddle, harmonium, and mandolin, Dr. Strangely Strange was more solidly rooted in melody and structure than the group's flaky Scottish counterparts. Produced by British modern folk guru Joe Boyd, "Kip of the Serenes" is built around simple and repetitious melodies occasionally interrupted by stream-of-consciousness musical and lyrical diversions. This simplistic approach would be abandoned with their 1970 follow-up, "Heavy Petting", which saw their first partnership with electric guitarist Gary Moore.

Marmalade Mountain is the longtime recording project of Zack Fischmann. After re-forming in Los Angeles in 2017, Fischmann wrote and recorded incessantly for a few years, and teamed up with the local music community to create and release his latest work, Strange Angels…

John Renbourn - BBC Live In Concert (1998) {Strange Fruit SFRSCD076 rec 1978-1980}
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© 1978-80, 1998 BBC Music / Strange Fruit | SFRSCD 076
Folk / British Folk / Celtic / Folk-Blues

The late '70s were a very fertile time for John Renbourn. The solo albums he'd done had explored early music and blues – the twin ends of a wide spectrum – and in his post-Pentangle period he mined a lot of the terrain in between. This album – recorded at BBC concerts on July 26, 1978, and May 21, 1980 – shows how far he'd traveled. His work with Stefan Grossman had been documented on a couple of albums, but adding flute and tabla to the lineup, as well as reuniting with former Pentangle colleague, singer Jacqui McShee, offered more possibilities, as on "Great Dreams From Heaven" and another visit to "Trees They Do Grow High," which Renbourn and McShee had performed with Pentangle.

Dreaming doesn’t come easy these shadowed days, which is why Strange To Explain by Woods is such a welcome turning of new colors.