prog folk

  • Straws – 1975 Ghosts album cover photo session. Let’s get out of 1975, and start floating through the decade. It has to be that way. This is the year too many other musical movements (Punk, New Wave, Arena Rock etc.) had started to change everything culturally that English people now tuned to. Making it so,…

  • Mike Oldfield – 1974 “The end of the first side of Ommadawn is the sound of me exploding from my mother’s vagina.” — Mike Oldfield. Although said with tongue planted firmly in cheek, no truer words have been spoken to describe a sound such as found at the end of Ommadawn, than the words spoken/written…

  • Mike Oldfield The exploration and deconstruction of English folk music seemed to be the path needed to be taken by new neo-folk artists. One unlikely champion of this became one that you’d least expect to be one. Now known as one of New Age and World music’s pioneers with albums like Tubular Bells, Incantations, and…

  • 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…

  • Jan Dukes de Grey Before we jump into 1972, lets catch two final one album wonder English neo-folk bands. Bands like these show the great aspect progression and complexity are starting to define the sound of their music. No longer content with paying due diligence to tradition they’re seeking to go beyond it, experimenting with…

  • Spirogyra (Martin and Barbara far right) Now here’s another interesting band. One that highlights the importance of giving equal providence to other voices, feelings, and sounds that English neo-folk was exploring. Spirogyra, appropriately enough, another band hailing from the mystical Yorkshire Dales area (home of Mr. Fox if you can remember!) has a very distinct…

  • Roy Harper You know, for me, there’s one reason I’ll give Jimmy Page a lifetime pass, it’s for his brief period supporting the genuinely offbeat, yet equally brilliant Roy Harper, and in doing so delivering both of their best work. Released in 1970, “The Same Old Rock” from Roy Harper’s Stormcock ushered in a new age…

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