December 2014

Gryphon: Checkmate (1974)

2014/12/10

Gryphon – 1974 The further we head down this neo-folk decade the more strained the strands holding it to the base become. It had to be that way. Nearly a decade into its creation, advances in technology, and a growing influence of outside musics started to gild the lily of what most considered English folk…
Richard and Linda Thompson: I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight (1974)

2014/12/09

Richard and Linda Thompson There’s something about the year 1974 that will trigger a sea change in the English musical landscape. A year before the rise of Thatcher and near the beginning of Labour’s inept descent into centrism, musicians were starting to feel the pangs of rebellion again. Before punk existed, there was one man…
Shirley Collins: Adieu to Old England (1974)

2014/12/08

What a weird time its must have been for England in 1974. It was during this year that the IRA started to launch an all-out offensive to rid Northern Ireland from England’s grasp, rampant energy blackouts forced the reintroduction of Three-Day Weeks to conserve electricity, Monty Python was ending, and the government itself was having…
Bert Jansch: Fresh As A Sweet Sunday Morning (1974)

2014/12/07

Bert Jansch – 1974 Sometimes you need a bit o’ change to right a trajectory. By 1974, many of the great English folk-rock artists of past had been either disbanding or watering down. One steady man had always been Bert Jansch. Maybe because of it, he’d always find ways to keep his group, the Pentangle,…
Alan Stivell: Brezhoneg Raok (1973)

2014/12/06

Alan Stivell and bombard. Finishing off what he hinted at in his previous album, yesterday’s A L’Olympia, Alan decided to commit to tape his idea of a brand new European music. Chamins de Terre, translates to Songs of the Earth, tried to combine everything from his background. His background in Celtic roots music, new influences…
Alan Stivell: Tri Martolod (1972)

2014/12/05

Alan Stivell – 1972 When we last left off Alan Stivell he was breathing new life into a genre threatened to be left in the dustbin of musical history. Breton folk music, and modern Celtic music as a whole experienced a revival of sorts due to his groundbreaking Renaissance de la Harpe Celtique. One year…
Clannad: Siúbhán Ní Dhuibhir (1973)

2014/12/04

Clannad In this brief sojourn to Ireland, for some neo-folk goodies, lets not forget a true behemoth of Celtic music: Clannad. Now famously known for giving us oodles of egregiously bad tin-whistle and keyboard-laden approximations of Irish new age music, and introducing the world to the wonderful Enya (who I’ll defend to no end!)…before, there…
Planxty: The West Coast of Clare (1973)

2014/12/03

Planxty As we continue to flesh out England’s neo-folk lineage it becomes ever more important to visit their Irish brethren. A brief sojourn there, around that time especially, starts to bare much more fruit to sample. Groups like Planxty who originally started out as young lads helping older traditional singers, only to find their own…
Horslips: Dearg Doom (1973)

2014/12/02

Horslips Can you almost feel the finish line? Allow me to go back a year, to a year 1973, when another band of Dubliners such as Horslips, whose name derives from the wordplay of “The Four Poxmen of The Horslypse,” figuratively rained Celtic rock bombs on the masses. Spurred on by the sound of early…
(Album of the Month) November 2014: Van Morrison – Veedon Fleece (1974)

2014/12/01

Van Morrison, his pooch, and Carol Guida November, has gone and past, but its effects still linger. Physically, the body feels the languidity of the environment taking over. Emotionally, the fog of memories and an overabundance of pressures; whether work, relationship, or fraternal, start to weigh on you. Spiritually, you attempt to draw on the…