#folk balladry

[fernmaddie]

introduction

hey folks! i wanted to give a little introduction to myself and my work, as this is my first time presenting myself publicly on tumblr. this is going to make me sound rather professional, but i promise i'm just here to do the regular ol' tumblr things: be silly, gush about things i care about, and not take myself too seriously. i hope you'll join me. :)

i'm fern maddie (she/her), a queer experimental folk artist, multi-instrumentalist, and balladeer based on abenaki land. through folk balladry and original writing, i perform songs and stories exploring themes of grief, trauma, and renewal.

***please note: my approach to folk music is adaptive, interpretive, critical, queer-feminist, and inclusive. white supremacists, "folkish" nationalists, terfs, or anyone who engages with english-language folk literature as a tool of western cultural "purity" will be blocked***

buy my music on bandcamp

listen on spotify

watch some performance on youtube

more about my work below the cut....

past projects

ghost story - my debut album, released in 2022. ghost story was named the #2 best folk album of 2022 by the guardian, and one of the top roots albums of the year from npr music. across 10 tracks, it explores the stories we inherit from the dead -- both our personal dead and cultural dead -- through a queer-feminist lens. includes a critically-acclaimed interpretation of the ballad "hares on the mountain" (roud 329), as well as the ballads "the maid on the shore" (roud 181), "northlands" (roud 21) and a queer re-framing of the scottish shepherding song "ca' the yowes."

north branch river - my debut EP, released in 2020. across 6 sparse tracks and spry banjo-playing, it explores the intimacy and pain of our tenuous relationship with the natural world. includes a re-interpretation of the ballad "the elfin knight" (roud 12), and the original song "two women," inspired by selkie folklore.

of song and bone - of song and bone is a short-lived podcast i produced a few years ago. there are only 3 episodes out, but they illustrate some of my scholarship about folk balladry and my own relationship to balladry as a literary tradition. FYI: i would probably frame a few things differently if i were re-recording the podcast today (ideas and language evolve!). perennially thinking about making more, but we'll see.

currently in development

way to live - way to live is my second studio album, currently in production. as of this writing, way to live includes 8 tracks, and similar to my previous work, combines original songs with folk ballads, though with a greater share of personal storytelling than my earlier records.

said the false nurse - this is a piece of adaptive short fiction i'm currently developing. it's a deeply sinister queer re-telling of the horror ballad long lankin (roud 6), set in the 1620s in the north of England. stay tuned for process updates!

adult children - this is a full-length original novel and associated concept album i'm developing. it's set in contemporary rural vermont, and focuses on a group of adult siblings, their dying father, their failing farm, and the new arrival who threatens their co-dependent bond. the associated rock opera will be written in a folk-rock style with digressions into folktronica and country.

[idlejet]

"Those honey-swells: peals of bells or sidewalk-laughter. We’ve come to publicize the sweet pageant of our own hereafter. Darling, with your tongue distended and marring mine, I can’t call up the words."

[cruelsister-moved2]

hey kind of weird question but i saw a post of yours from a couple years ago while searching some random tags and you mentioned having some opinions about anais mitchell (presumably her recorings of the child ballads?) and the whole coffee shop au-ification of balladry (particularly tam lin) and that resonated so hard with me so i just thought i'd ask you to elaborate more on that because i genuinely want to hear what you have to say. also i fucking love angela carter

oh man... I mean first of all I just reject the term 'child ballad' out of hand nowadays because like fjc was some random racist eugenicist middle class american academic borderline-hobbyist who never even heard a folk song in the wild and basically just compiled stuff other people had already written down. so even if I pretend to subscribe to the ownership of the collector, which I don't, we never refer to 'sharp ballads' or 'percy ballads' or even 'burns ballads', despite the fact that burns was actively re/writing his. add to that the fact that like a third of child's collection came from a specific, named woman (Anna Gordon/Mrs Brown of Falkland) and you start to get angry at the anonymisation&dehumanisation of 'the folk', especially when you learn that child's ballads made him rich yet socially humiliated mrs brown. she (along with numerous other women + burns as a kind of anomalous man) was working actively from inside a tradition, but we instead default to the authority of the prejudiced outsider because of romantic beliefs about the naivety of 'the folk'. (if anything, child actively harmed the tradition with his completely arbitrary subjectivity + not collecting any fucking tunes...)

the very notion of folk music as just this organic wellspring that just emerges naturally from a people-group is a victorian/edwardian fantasy concocted by nationalists in order to reclaim said material, both for profit and for nationalism reasons. objectively speaking, someone or several someones composed that material & many of them were most likely women. the idea of claiming that folk music 'belongs' to all of 'us' (and 'us' at least in its original intention meaning white english people or white people of english extraction) because several generations of performers put their own spin on it is like saying the beatles' copyright really belongs to all of us because lennon & mccartney co wrote them. I'm not arguing for copyright law here but like the recognition of folksong ownership is completely broken in popular conception and it's v much a case of the idea that something belongs to 'everyone' is erasing the actual individuals/groups whose cultural property it is. (+ the living folk tradition regularly accepts new songs of known authorship, and operates a paradigm of collective ownership that is really ill served by the modern idea of intellectual property that can only make something a specific someone's or no one's at all)

so in THAT context, the girlbossification and uwuification of balladry by an outsider (who believes themselves to be an insider) is just kind of grotesque. firstly you're working from a canon which was selected and heavily modified by a victorian man to suit his delicate sensibilities, and then projecting like modern western feminist sensibilities on them. I've seen like 'feminist reworkings' of songs which lament women's helplessness, or exist for mothers to warn daughters about sexual assault. this is where the angela carter comparison comes in bc shes like the patron saint against the 'feminism is when women slay' school of folklore retelling and also someone who was both working really hard not to claim ownership of the stories she collected or to claim thematic ownership with her interpretations, but also writing her own 'folklore retellings' that actually comprehend and work with the deep themes at play rather than being like hm it's kind of problematic that the prince couldn't remember what cinderella looked like (fwiw most cinderella-esque stories are explicitly about the resourcefulness of the girl, and the prince - w his attached status+possessions - is literally just there to be her reward lol kind of a win for feminism idk..)

it's the belief that everyone in the past, especially if they were illiterate, was stupid. not to Survivals Theory but I recently saw this song from an irish traveller woman who claimed it was in the bible which everyone found funny but it literally heavily resembles a story from the apocryphal infancy gospel of thomas, which incidentally was extant as old irish poetry c.700 CE. like the anais mitchell girlies always have this approach that they're the first ones to recognise how great this repertoire is, or something. and her approach is very like oh I've discovered this lost hidden tradition etc although ironically she herself is part of a historic tradition of north americans ripping off martin carthy LOL 🤭

sorry this is like a huge thing for me and i kind of ran out of steam to get into it all but i appreciate the question n i hope at least some of that means something to you<3

[nelliesnellie]

Eowyn and the Transgender Imagination: An Infodump by a Trans Folklorist

I recently watched the video essay "The Queer History of The Lord of the Rings" by verilybitchie on YouTube. Much of this video was spent discussing the character Eowyn, who presents as a man in order to go to war. This is discussed along with the fairy tales of gender transformation that were plausibly influential to Tolkien when writing Eowyn's story.

And HELLO this is my wheelhouse. I'm a trans folklorist who is naturally quite interested in queerness in folk narratives. AHHH!!!

Anyway, its a very cool video that I'm linking at the bottom, but there's a lot more that can be said on the topic of Eowyn and gender-scrambly folk narratives and its filling my brain like rapidly expanding foam insulation so I'm gonna dump my thoughts out here until my brain shuts off.

•❅───✧❅✦❅✧───❅•

Eowyn's gender transgression makes her an example of what folklorist Pauline Greenhill calls the "transgender imagination."

The transgender imagination is itself an example of the potentially yielding nature of interpretations, which might further assist in extending the understandings of personhood, community, and indeed humanity for transgender and non-transgender folks alike. (Greenhill 2014. "“If I Was a Woman As I Am a Man”: The Transgender Imagination in Newfoundland Ballads.")

Pauline Greenhill is one of my fave scholars. She is one of the main folklorists to write about queerness in fairy tales, and one of very few scholars to publish about queerness in folk ballads.

Lets look at those historic anglophone folk ballads for a moment. There are a number of songs about bold young women, much like Eowyn. These often involve the heroine disguising herself as a man in order to fill a gendered role, such as a sailor, highwayman, or soldier.

These ballads typically include a lot more gender play than included in Tolkien's warrior woman. The song "Female Drummer" (Roud 226), for instance, can easily be read as an overtly trans narrative. The protagonist has no desire to return to presenting as a woman, and is joyful in gender transgression. They are only discovered when a girl falls in love with them, discovers their identity, and outs them to their commanding officer. In "The Female Cabin Boy" (Roud 239), a girl presents as a boy to work on a ship. Both the captain and his wife are attracted to her, and she becomes pregnant with the captains child. This implies homosexuality, bisexuality, and transness. The Eowyn narrative does not get as deep in the gender play, but its relation to these narratives do put it in this context of gender exploration.

One thing that is consistent in nearly every story of female-to-male gender presentation across ballads and fairy tales is a return to femininity at the end. Eowyn certainly fits this mold as well. The difference is in the motivation and circumstances behind this. In balladry, as seen in the examples above, the protagonist is often outed. In other examples, the protagonist reveals herself once she has successfully gained some sort of "win" over men (e.g. Roud 2173, Roud 7). In certain fairy tales, a reverse transformation takes place, where the protagonist undergoes a feminizing transformation at the end of the story (for more see "Queering Gender: Transformations in "Peg Bearskin," "La Poiluse," and Related Tales").

Eowyn, on the other hand, is not outed, transformed, or empowered over the patriarchy. Sure - in revealing herself she claims her own destiny, and does what no man can by slaying the Witch King of Angmar. She then returns to society as a woman once more, no longer in defiance of the patriarchy. Which like if that's what she wants, go for it. And she marries Faramir, who imo is fucking awesome, and not "an off-brand version of Aragorn" as verilybitchie put it. But ultimately her story is a lot less transgressive and gender exploration-ey as the ballads and fairy tales she relates to.

Ultimately we see, as verilybitchie indicates in their video essay, that Tolkien's straightforward old Catholic Englishman attitude does not match the potential queerness of the material he engages with. It's like Eowyn wants to be more queer, but is held back by the perspectives of the author.

Because these narratives are inherently challenging to gender and sexuality. By trespassing gender territory, new ground is reached, and Pandora's Gender Box is opened. As Diane Dugaw puts it in Warrior Women and Popular Balladry 1650-1850, the "Female Warrior is inherently contradictory to social construction of gender at the time they were popular," and "is a polyvalent heroine who has it both ways - "female and "male.""

You may notice Dugaw specifies "at the time they were popular." This because she is discussing this topic from a historical perspective. See, deviance of identity is understood differently depending on the social context. Both Dugaw and Greenhill have published really interesting stuff in this regard.

How does this apply to Lord of the Rings and Eowyn's story? Is the relevant cultural context that of the Rohirrim? Tolkien's personal beliefs? The cultural setting in which the book was written? The current day? The material, scattered across history, that inspired LotR? Probably any of the above, depending on what you're going for. As verilybitchie points out, the change in perspectives over time explains the changes in how Eowyn is presented in the books vs the movies.

BUT NELLIE. DO YOU THINK THAT EOWYN IS TRANSGENDER??? You might be screaming at the screen. I dunno. Probably not. But maybe? I could debate that question, but honestly, does it matter?

Ultimately, what's compelling about this question, is the question itself. The open door to the fact that, well, maybe not, but hey possibly there's some flavor of transness involved. This notion, this raised possibility, is the "transgender imagination" concept I brought up at the beginning of this wee essay. Eowyn does not need to be one thing or another. By inspiring the transgender imagination, she challenges expectations and opens doors across the spectrum. This is part of why characters like her are so delightful, ya know?

•❅───✧❅✦❅✧───❅•

There is so much more that can be said about this but I am fucking TIRED because I needed a rest day and instead got hyperfixated on this all day haha weeee. So I'm gonna stop myself here even though I'd love to get more into the fairy tale side of things and dig more into the actual LotR stuff.

Ultimately I really liked verilybitchie's video essay and recommend it. Just got like, some more context here weeeee. Gonna link that video essay now. Okiday. If you're here, thanks for reading my ramble!

[mywifeleftme]

277: Mirel Wagner // When the Cellar Children See the Light of Day

When the Cellar Children See the Light of Day Mirel Wagner 2014, Sub Pop (Bandcamp)

Title of this one makes me think of a joke my aunt told me when I was little about a kid whose parents tell him he can do whatever he wants while they’re away except open the basement door—after a bunch of rigamarole, he of course eventually does, and what does he see? Trees, the sky…

There is not a lot of that (or any) humour in Mirel Wagner’s music, but Cellar Children is hitting with me more on this listen than it has previously. An Ethiopian Finn who sings in unaccented English, Wagner’s spare folk blues brings to mind at various points PJ Harvey, Fiona Apple, and Jack White, doing the kind of skulking olde timey murder balladry that really had a moment in the late ‘00s to early ‘10s (does anybody else remember the Builders and the Butchers?). The majority of these songs are no more than Wagner’s voice and acoustic guitar, and she is capable of transfixing without any talent show octave jumping or even raising her voice. She simply draws you in with her tone the same way you’re drawn in by noticing someone calmly staring at you from across the room, or catching a glimmer of eyes in the trees. I like it; for what it’s worth, my girlfriend loves it and demanded to know why I didn’t show her the record earlier.

As of 2024, it’s Wagner’s last record to date. But she did create an Instagram account last year, so perhaps we’ll hear more from her yet.

277/365

[wildwren]

success!!! i’ve officially blorbified the single most terrifying character in the history of english language folk balladry

[theleakypen]

Cradle Songs, Grave Songs from Brivele

Happy Bandcamp Friday! Today (and the first Friday of EVERY month), if you buy music on Bandcamp, the artist gets every cent of the cost, with Bandcamp waiving its cut for the day.

If you need help picking some music to buy, I can recommend Brivele (linked above). Per their website, they are a Seattle-based trio who braid together Yiddish song, anti-fascist and labor balladry, folk-punk, and contemporary rabble-rousing in three part harmony. And they absolutely deliver on the promise of those words.

[krispyweiss]

Song Review(s): Sierra Hull - “Beautifully out of Place” and “The Last Minute” (Live, March 23, 2024)

Sierra Hull wasted no time getting down to business during her debut at Nashville’s famed Basement East concert venue.

The folks handling the livestream; however, were not as sharp, cutting in to the opening “How Long” as the song was ending. Presumably to make up for the error, two additional tracks were available on the freebie sampler.

The languid balladry of “Beautifully out of Place” shines a light on Hull, who is renown for her virtuosic playing, as a singer. It’s followed with the exceptional instrumental interplay of “The Last Minute,” which allows the mandolinist and her bluegrass-with-drums band, including acoustic guitar, fiddle and bass, to show off their individual and ensemble chops.

Grade card: Sierra Hull - “Beautifully out of Place” and “The Last Minute” (Live - 3/23/24) - B/A

3/27/24

[brydeswhale]

Some Cool Songs That You Might Like If You Like ASOIAF...

These are some old folk songs from Britain, Ireland, And Scotland, as well as other islands and countries in those areas, dating back centuries ago. Many of these songs are from the Child Ballad collection, formally titled "The English And Scottish Popular Ballads", which includes many American Variants, as collected by Francis James Child in the second half of the nineteenth century. Others are songs which have remained in the oral tradition of popular folk music. I hope you will enjoy these as much as I do, and they will give a small insight into old balladry, taking into account the differences in musical styles between the modern day and the medieval period.

And if you don't like them, don't listen to them. I put lots here, so we can all have a little something. I also have to warn I leaned more toward being able to understand the lyrics and so forth, rather than the genuine sound of the music. There are instruments being used here that may not have been available to the original composers. Sorry for the inconvenience.

I'm planning on doing this as a series of posts, instead of all at once, because, frankly, there's so many. So, so many.

But I thought we could start with Inter Diabolus Et Virgo, The Devil and the Maiden, AKA Riddles Wisely Expounded.

This is a sort of joke. It's not the oldest song I plan to talk about, but it is listed as #1 in the Child Ballads, and I find that sensibly hilarious.

The earliest version of this song, dating to the mid 1400s, is likely to be Inter Diabolus Et Virgo. It's a very basic story, a maiden is confronted with a devil(possibly THE devil) and challenged to answer a series of riddles. Because this isn't a tragedy, the end result is that she wins and he gets banished back to hell.

So, this is one of the early versions, even in the original pronunciation(basically, if Shakespeare is hard, this one might be a bit of a toughie, too). But you do begin to get the idea and a general sense of the narration.

Meanwhile, here's another version, in a more modern language. Quick note, this one is stylistically more bluegrass in style, corresponding to a factor in the preservation of balladry. Immigrants to the Appalachian region of the United States took their music with them, and, isolated in the mountains and hills, many of these songs survived relatively unchanged. In fact, some were better preserved in this oral tradition than they were in their native countries.

So, as the years progressed, the song became more romantic. The devil began to disguise himself as a knight, coming to woo the maiden, but she was able to put him off and escape.

I couldn't find a version of that, so here's a version that emerged around the seventeenth century century. This one is a very straight forward love song, with very little of the original dialog between a fiend and a virtuous woman. A mysterious man comes to the home of three sisters and lies beside the youngest all night long. When the dawn comes, he poses these riddles in response to her marriage proposal.

There we have it, a short exploration of Child Ballad 1. Please enjoy.

[lovejustforaday]

2023 Year End List - #18

18. The Land Is Inhospitable And So Are We - Mitski

Main genres: Indie Folk

A decent sampling of: Slowcore, Alternative Country, Chamber Pop, Countrypolitan

Gonna admit something that could get me crucified in some spaces of the internet - Mitski is not my #1 contemporary "sad girl" in indie rock/pop, and I've never really 100% bought the hype.

She's definitely talented, and arguably the most likable, down-to-earth indie musician that has reached her level of fame. But Puberty 2 through Be The Cowboy and Laurel Hell, I've only ever found about two tracks on each of these records that I'd wanna revisit regularly (Haven't touched the fan favourite Bury Me At Makeout Creek or those first two records yet, so I could be totally missing out on her best material).

You see, "Your Best American Girl" and "Nobody" are excellent singles that have always deserved the hype they received, but then her records as a whole have generally been full of these songs that I would describe as "under-cooked" and sometimes too short for their own good.

This time around, however, I'm happy to express that I genuinely really enjoyed her latest LP The Land Is Inhospitable And So Are We. Mitski's greatest qualities as a songwriter shine much brighter here than on recent past projects. Stripping everything down to intimate, slow-moving folk-country balladry plays to her greatest strengths - the way in which Mitski carries her melodies so delicately, like a broken bird when singing, and how clearly gifted she is at writing those melodies.

The display of painfully universal human emotions also permeates this record as much as any other Mitski project, but this time I feel that her songs are given more room to breathe, which allows the emotional gut punches to hit much harder.

This is most evident on the record's finest moment, a song called "Heaven" which, like all of the best Mitski tracks, is mostly about the shameless longing for the love of another human being, this time set to the tune of arcadian, countrypolitan-style string arrangements that flourish over a wistful promenade of reflections on her unbridled devotion towards a lover that is all too absent. This is the sound of her signature artistic style aging into a fine, full-bodied wine that I could very easily get drunk off of (and then, in true Mitski fashion, start sobbing uncontrollably).

There's also the thundering bittersweet triumph of "When Memories Snow", wherein Mitski expresses the desire to wipe clean all the traumas of the past, while achieving a sound that is close, familiar, and personal, yet also somehow larger than life as any 60s brill building production. That bold country orchestra is every bit as awakening to the senses as dunking your head in a bucket of ice water, and I also just need to take a minute to acknowledge the deeply satisfying chord progressions that manage to really seal the deal on making this track feel truly massive.

I also really appreciate the closer "I Love Me After You", an epilogue that gently sways and disappears into a hushed, forested midnight of bassy piano chords, low crashing cymbals, and sleepy guitar drones.

If you weren't fully sold on Mitski before in the same way that I wasn't, then this could very well be the record that gets you hooked. The Land Is Inhospitable And So Are We plays to all of her strengths as an artist, and it really shows Mitski coming into her own as a seasoned musician who's capable of adapting to new sounds.

I'm still not convinced she couldn't make an even better record in the future if she continues in this direction as a songwriter. It's a bit slow to start, and the B-side heavily dominates the album, but this is her first record that I will be putting in my regular rotation, and a big highlight of the year for the Mitski diehards and longtime skeptics alike. So kudos to the millennial queen of sad girl indie.

8/10

Highlights: "Heaven", "When Memories Snow", "I Love Me After You", "My Love Mine All Mine"

[luuurien]

Garrett Atterberry - Vectrex

(Electropop, Synthpop, Alt-Pop)

Garrett Atterberry’s third full length pulls out every trick he has, breakbeats and psychedelic rap and dramatic balladry all part of Vectrex’s brilliant formula. It’s a colorful, bold, and lovingly overstuffed album that makes the most of his maximalist production and greater confidence as a vocalist.

☆☆☆☆½

Garrett Atterberry’s music is a combination of luxurious pop and a messy interior world, his sound the result of endless self-teaching and a constant pursuit of connection. It’s what made the best moments of his sophomore album Fairchild Channel F, surprise turns into pop rock and industrial dance-pop and atmospheric indie folk surprising but always delightful despite how far off course they veered, his wonderfully layered production and subtle vocals the throughline for it all. In the last two years, though, he’s further refined his style while holding onto all its distinctive qualities, his third and latest album Vectrex a loving overstuffed album that makes the most of his maximalist production and greater confidence as a vocalist, still jumping between genres and placing every texture he can fit in there but tightening the hooks and committing to a cohesive atmosphere even if he’s focused on playful hyperpop or brooding pop rap. It feels much longer than its 37 minute runtime because of how much is going on, pulling you into Atterberry’s world and balancing out weighty pop songs with slow jams and atmospheric electronica until there’s few other pop albums this year able to match its addictive formula. Vectrex knows what makes good pop stick and fuses it with his impossibly detailed production - it’s easy to see why it sticks the landing.

Atterberry’s writing and tone haven’t changed much, still painting in broad strokes with lyrics focused on heartbreak and mental instability, but it’s the triumphant tone and reinforced core of the music he uses to hold Vectrex together. Lead single Waste builds on its industrial percussion and buzzing pads with swirling vocoders that makes its anxious pining thick and overwhelming, later released in the warmth of The Road Home and Flatline Hotline’s final plea for understanding, the outline of Vectrex’s narrative found in the push-and-pull between waiting on connection and all the hope and anger between those few moments of release. The album’s first half is a killer six-track run, going from Sunshine (Like a Butterfly)’s apocalyptic electropop into the explosive back-to-back synthpop of Executioner and Heart Racer into the murky pop rap cut Mayday and Remains’ gorgeous drum and bass, culminating in the fiery centerpiece Light for a finale of jersey club drums and gospel harmonies - spreading the album out track by track might seem straightforward, but it outlines how Atterberry’s music can change in an instant, always pushing the boundaries of what can fit into his wiry electronica. There’s dozens of things to point out in any song here, be it Heart Racer’s panning arcade synths or the vocal sampling in New Vortex fully revealed in the outro, Vectrex filled with all these little things that make the full experience so fulfilling, sitting squarely in the sound and energy of homemade pop and operating on the idea that being able to make music on your own time should result in the fullest sound possible. Atterberry’s got as much time as he desires to pull off his vision, and Vectrex reaps the highest possible rewards from that.

All this detail can come at a cost to clarity, which is where the few rough spots of Vectrex reveal themselves. Vocal harmonies can feel unevenly balanced due to Atterberry’s lower voice and the digital effects needed to add those higher octaves, Sunshine (Like a Butterfly)’s chorus noticeably muddy between the thick chord layers and electric guitars and noisy drumming, while the undeniably lovely The Road Home is mixed quieter to fit in Atterberry’s dark bass voice, leading guest vocalist TaylorMae to stick out in her verse - none of these little things are enough to cause any major issues, but Atterberry’s fine tuning of the production for himself can leave features and certain instrumentation exposed much more than the rest, the monumental force of his music still tailored foremost to him. That’s not to say there aren’t fantastic features: hyperpop darling saoirse dream makes an appearance on the penultimate Flatline Hotline with a short and sweet verse atop its breakbeat drumming and thick piano chords; That Guy Veezy drops one of his strongest verses to date on the trippy final half of Mayday; shoegazer Divine Intentions layers their voice in hyperpop voice filters for the ear candy chorus of Heart Racer; but these features are given distinct sections where the production can be brought down to their level, whereas TaylorMae or The Arizon don’t fit in nearly as tight in their respective tracks. Regardless, Vectrex's uncompromising nature and passionate energy takes it all the way to the finish line, Atterberry’s quest for a steady path diverging across twelve lovely songs that make it clear how powerful he is with a specific and singular goal in mind.

A ton of ideas in just 37 minutes, Vectrex makes good on its promises, not a moment going to waste as Atterberry creates synthpop as catchy as it is adventurous. He never loses sight of what makes his music tick, even when drifting off into drum and bass or moody piano ballads, always daring to add one more level to his music and see how he can twist and turn it to fit somewhere in the mix. There’s no telling where he might go, but when he does reveal it the results are always electrifying - how many other albums would be so ambitious as to include a romantic dream pop cut between two of its heaviest electronic songs? It’s a joy from start to finish, cataloging the emotional waves of an uneven relationship and the loneliness that comes with every moment. His writing may speak of insecurity and confusion, but his music undoubtedly is not: Vectrex knows what it wants to be, and Atterberry materializes its every wish. He may still be doing it all on his own, but it’s tough to imagine him doing it any other way, Vectrex’s galactic pop achieved completely on his own terms. It’s a lot, and that’s exactly how he pulls you in.

[burlveneer-music]

Fiona Soe Paing - Sand, Silt, Flint - while I’m in a dark folk vein, here’s another good one

Fiona Soe Paing is a producer, vocalist and sound artist, of Scottish/Burmese heritage, based in Aberdeenshire, North East Scotland.  Combining her multi-layered vocals with dark, rhythmic electronic textures, field recordings, archive material and traditional instruments, the music creates innovative, mesmerising and unsettling song-scapes.

​Inspired by the folklore, landscape, language and rich balladry tradition of North East Scotland, each track on "Sand, Silt, Flint" is linked to a specific location and its story, with five new arrangements of traditional ballads, and five new compositions.

Cover artwork "Dark Rabbit" by Clea Wallis The Ballad of John Hosie co-written with Thee Manual Labour. Lyrics for Fisher's Lullaby by Zetta Sinclair. John Strachan samples from the Alan Lomax Collection at the American F olklife Center, Library of Congress. Courtesy of the Association for Cultural Equity, with thanks. Vocals and production - Fiona Soe Paing Fiddle - Paul Anderson Clarinet - Joanna Nicholson Cello - Alice Allen Guitar - Thee Manual Labour Drums - David McKay Clarsach - Irene Watt Mixed and mastered by Musicrange Project production by Open Road Ltd Created with support from Creative Scotland and Help Musicians Uk, with thanks. With Thanks to The Elphinstone Institute of the University Of Aberdeen.

[randomvarious]

Today’s compilation:

Nettwerk Sound Sampler Volume Two (A Food for Thought) 1988 Pop / Synthpop / Alternative Rock

The other day I posted about Canadian juggernaut label Nettwerk's early days by giving a listen to their first ever sampler, 1987's Food for Thought, Vol. 1. Although they'd go on to become a very large and eclectic label, Nettwerk had had a certain focus on industrial dance, synthpop, and alternarock in their mid-to-late 80s infancy back then, and it was reflected through that sampler.

However, this second and final installment from their short-lived Food for Thought series that they released the following year appears to have served as a bit of a stepping stone for them, as they seem eager to show off their shiny new toy: a multitalented 20-year-old Sarah McLachlan, who'd yet to have really broken out. Before she'd go on to become especially known for her beautifully tender late 90s piano balladry, and then as an unfortunate Facebook meme for her gut-wrenching, poured-on-too-thick SPCA advocacy ads that featured one of those famed piano ballads as its soundtrack, the Halifax native had moved to Vancouver to release her poppy debut album on Nettwerk in 1988.

On this eight-song sampler, McLachlan gets to appear on a quarter of its real estate: she gets the opener, "Out of the Shadows," which was also the opener on her debut album, Touch, and then she takes up lead vocals on EBM / industrial dance duo Manufacture's debut single, "As the End Draws Near."

It's this signing of McLachlan, along with the signing of Canadian female folk-rock duo Lava Hay, that you can see Nettwerk start to expand from its industrial, synthpop, and alt roots. For years afterward they'd still be primarily known as an industrial label, with Skinny Puppy, Front 242, and Consolidated lining their roster, but McLachlan would manage to become their biggest star, showing that from a somewhat early stage, Nettwerk was actually a bit more than just an industrial label. And I'm sure that McLachlan's diamond and platinum and gold-selling records left them flush with plenty enough cash in order for them to finance their own industrial ventures too; a sound that's far more niche than McLachlan's universal, pop mass appeal.

Also, in '94, Nettwerk would add Front Line Assembly offshoot duo Delerium to their ranks, and, well, if you're an electronic music fan, you probably know that that ended up resulting in one of the greatest pieces of electronic music ever recorded in the year 2000, with DJ Tiësto's "In Search of Sunrise remix" of Delerium's "Silence," which featured Sarah McLachlan on vocals. It's a team-up that probably would've never occurred had Delerium and McLachlan not been signed to the same label.

But all of this, unfortunately, is really just a long preamble to say that none of the music that's on this particular sampler is actually all that striking 😔. It's all disposable and none of it really hits. Much of volume one is this way too, but it at least had a couple stone-cold gems on it. This, however, doesn't seem to have a single one.

It's still been fun briefly tracing this big Canadian label's early history, though!

No highlights.

[dustedmagazine]

Wheatie Mattiasich — Old Glow (Open Mouth)

Old Glow by Wheatie Mattiasich

Wheatie Mattiasich is a Baltimore-based singer-songwriter who takes a modern and idiosyncratic approach to the folk ballad tradition. She infuses the form with a singular vision, one that defies categorization. The only thing traditional about her music is the Appalachian dulcimer she employs in some of her songs, and even this is electrified and augmented by echo and reverb. In truth, Mattiasich conjures sonic visions that are simultaneously charming and otherworldly. Her vocal tone is redolent of Josephine Foster but takes on richer and more soulful hues; as they leave her body, the lyrics become entwined in an ethereal softness and warmth, an old glow. This candlelit radiance diffuses into her music, lending it a sort of dream logic. The dulcimer, keyboard and guitar tones flicker and dance with a strange effervescence, warping time and space, imbuing the air with eidetic imagery.

Mattiasich has been active for nearly 20 years, but Old Glow is the first time her sounds have etched themselves onto vinyl. Even though she flies under the radar, you may have already experienced her unique tessitura: that’s Mattiasich singing alongside Victoria Legrand on Beach House’s evocative “Sunset.” You might also be surprised to see Old Glow in the Open Mouth catalog, but Mattiasich’s affinity for subverting genre signifiers and enhancing the murkier side of the folk ballad form situates her within the label’s orbital plane. Her partner and collaborator Stephen Santillan (Permanent Waves, Oh Hang, More Dogs) enhances the sense of turbidity with his organ and guitar contributions. Together, the duo produces dark shapes limned with light, the smoldering embers of a dying fire. 

Balladry is rooted in the darker corners of the human condition, and Old Glow continues this custom. Ominous bells introduce album opener “Canyon,” before Santillan’s frayed chords establish a mournful dirge upon which Mattiasich’s ghostly voice drifts. The lyrics are only partially discernible, but a forlorn tone reveals the melancholy within. This poignancy is felt across each of the pieces she offers. Mattiasich’s emotionally potent voice is the thread binding Old Glow into a cohesive song cycle. Whether she’s strumming a dulcimer or harmonizing with Santillan’s uncanny chords and melodies, her voice is at the center, the anchor to which her hymns are moored. It’s as if by singing, Mattiasich allows her listeners to experience a sense of lucidity within the dreamy worlds she weaves, a comforting presence amidst the eeriness. It’s this warm, beating heart that makes Old Glow truly beautiful to behold.   

Bryon Hayes

[seaglassandeelgrass]

In retrospect, watching the Sharpe series when sixteen may have contributed significantly to my subsequent preoccupation with trad-folk and balladry...

...that and the incredibly well-drawn AMVs set to Child Ballads I found on youtube around the same time that, having never watched any of the animes the characters depicted came from, I'm not sure how I found them, but was duly captivated by the songs about ravens plotting to eat your corpse and being murdered by your lover's husband, playing against the jarringly discordant backdrop of like, naruto characters or something. idk

[houseofloveconcerts]

Hannah Read

Hannah Read is an award winning multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, singer and composer. Born and brought up in Scotland and now based in Northern California, her music straddles both sides of the Atlantic. Equally at home improvising on fiddle, playing Appalachian old-time music or delivering finely wrought original songs, she is an artist that gets equal thrill touring as an International band leader, as well as a collaborative side-musician.

Her latest critically acclaimed album The Fungi Sessions Vol. 1 was released in October 2023. Described as “A memorable partnership between science and music” (The Scotsman), it is a concept album of fungi-inspired instrumental compositions. This body of work was commissioned by Edinburgh University and is a tribute to Hannah’s late father, world renowned mycologist Nick Read. Throughout this album, Hannah’s fiddle, electric and acoustic guitars meld with clawhammer banjoist Michael Starkey, upright bassist Jeff Picker (Nickel Creek) and mixing engineer Charles Van Kirk’s sound design. Composed over a week in May 2023 and recorded a month later in the Scottish Borders, this short window allowed for an uninterrupted writing process, producing something that feels fresh and experimental, yet organic and grounded. Prominent mycologist Paul Stamets has called it “a wonderful album of fungi-inspired music” and Hannah’s hope is that listeners will take themselves on a mindful walk through the woods and make their own adventure while listened to the album top to toe.

The Fungi Sessions follows Cross The Rolling Water (Hudson Records), her Appalachian old-time duo with Michael Starkey, released in 2022; “Gripping… all in all, it’s a foot-tappin’ delight, music and playing that draws you in the way lungs draw in air, the tunesmithery interspersed with fine balladry” (Songlines ****). As a songwriter, her 2018 highly celebrated debut solo release Way Out I’ll Wander (Hudson Records) is comprised of “nine gorgeous originals” (The Guardian). The songs unfurl around Hannah’s sterling vocal and deft instrumental work on fiddle and guitar, supported by guest musicians Jefferson Hamer (Anais Mitchell), Jeff Picker, Grammy award winning Sarah Jarosz, and album producer Charles Van Kirk.

After growing up singing and playing fiddle in Scotland’s rich traditional music community, Hannah deepened her musicianship studying at The City of Edinburgh Music School, The American School of Modern Music in Paris, and finally at the prestigious Berklee College of Music in Boston, where she immersed herself in the American folk traditions that had compelled her to cross the Atlantic. Soon she moved to Brooklyn, diving headfirst into a diverse and thriving music scene that yielded abundant opportunities for collaboration. Many of Hannah’s collaborative relationships — performing and recording with musicians including Lola Kirke, Tony Trischka, Sam Reider, Cassandra Jenkins, Jacksonport, Nora Brown, Jefferson Hamer, The Fretless, Tim Eriksen, and many others — emerged from late nights playing at Brooklyn mainstays like Barbès and Sunny’s Bar. 

Back in the UK, Hannah is equally in demand. She contributed fiddle, guitar, and vocals to the English/Scottish folk supergroup Songs of Separation, a project created in the aftermath of the 2014 Scottish independence referendum. The resulting record, Songs of Separation (featuring Eliza Carthy, Karine Polwart and others) won Album of the Year at the 2017 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards. She has recently performed at festivals across the country including London Jazz Festival and Cambridge Folk Festival, both performing solo and in various collaborations.

Spurred on by this array of collaborations, Hannah continues to hone her solo career, opening for artists such as Darlingside and Kris Drever. She has arranged and recorded strings for Keenan O’Meara, Jacksonport and Ruby Landen. Also an accomplished music instructor, appearing on faculty at Shetland Songwriting Festival, Belgium’s Fiddlers on the Move and to over to North America, teaching at Miles of Music Camp in NH, The Omega Institute in NY, Alaska Folk Arts Camp, Louisiana's Blackpot Camp and many others. Hannah’s animating principles of curiosity and adventurousness run through all her work, and she continues to interweave these varied musical experiences from Scotland to New York and back again.