Jawbone Press
Jeannette Leech : Seasons They Change (UK,2010)***
Of course I was curious about this book which would span something like an overview of the acid/psychedelic folk scene. Perhaps about time someone starts a first introduction. I have thought by myself before that I would never try such an effort for the fact that I realise where the gaps are in collecting more information about it, even though I tried to collect a lot over the years. Mostly it is the most honest big cash collector's themselves who should know most about it, not any or at least not most of the magazines who roll hopelessly behind and who tend to be either genre-interest bound or want popular head titles, for their information they gather is mostly too hyped to be very significant when regarding a genre like psych/acid folk. Psych-folk like I often did like the author uses it became in the end more the association with a musical quality, rooted and therefore also still associated with in the psychedelic late 60s. The history of it however still is not enough organised as such. The mentality of these magazines still seeps a bit through. Never mind, especially many of the English spoken bands are mentioned, especially in association with the visions of a label like Elektra, or the reissues done by Sunbeam.
Of course there are a few significant trademark points. It is almost like an understatement in that The Incredible String Band's first two albums are considered as thé beginning of psychedelic folk. Secondly it's great to have mentioned the importance of Wickerman. (Not to forget that one of the folk songs had another dark association with a previous cult film “Night of the Hunter”). However the musical importance in case of Mark Fry and Caedmon is exagerated by the author who mixes personal feelings towards some albums compared to the reality. Comus is of course one of the weirdest psych-folk efforts. It is also great that Jeannette Leech gave attention to Pearls Before Swine because they also pretty much stood on their own. (I personally would like to show people also the acoustic moments of Country Joe and The Fish). I understand why bands were mentioned like Fairport Convention and Trees but in fact they belong to the folk-rock genre and have hardly a link to the psychedelic scene. The more important FC off-shoot Fotheringay is not mentioned. And while Pentangle is only partly described, in this context Spriguns is totally forgotten, and a band like Fuchsia not even mentioned. Also Rennaissance, Magna Carta and Dulcimer and bands like this are still more relevant to the development of other possibilities with folk mixed with pop/rock than for instance with Fairpor who always had their roots on traditional folk.
From the American scene I would have preferred the mention of the existence of a pagan folk scene. The only briefly mentioned Green Crown for instance are much more psychedelic and not so much Celtic inspired as the author briefly mentions. I also see no mention of the influence of the hippie scene or of the Indian music schools which changed the American folk and guitar music from inside out while expanding it. Also in general the inspiration of medieval and minstrel music, especially in France, I personally would have preferred that this was mentioned as an inspirational source, leading to unmentioned band expansions like from Gryphon, or in Germany from Ougenweide, while only the French band Malicorne was included. Also there is another significant inspirational source not mentioned like the Christian hippie movement, or other spiritual or different ideological or hippieesque communes creating also acoustic inspirations (including the Manson Family for instance).
The book, like all books in English, is still best informed on the England and the US. Luckily it mentions a handful of names that I insisted should be included (Haizea, Sedmina, a handful of Germans), still a few absolute important reissued albums were not mentioned. Also, the Krautrock scene was mostly not at all influenced by the English scene, it was so creative because it deliberately wasn't, although concerts of Zappa gave some ideas to change more radically. Missing from Germany are Hölderlin's Traum and Carol Of Harvest to start with, two much more ground breaking albums than Mark Fry or Caedmon. There's also no mention of all the Swedish psych-folk albums, or what happened in that regard in the Brazil scene. And what about the Australian bands like Tully/Extradition and Madden and Harris which shouldn't have been missed. Canada was mostly rather progressive and avant-garde but bands like Ptarmigan and a few others like Cano I would not have forgotten. The amount of French folk progressive is uncountable, but the book gave a few good starters like Higelin & Areski & some Brigitte Fontaine. And what about the numerous acid folk references in Japan ? Only a new band like Ghost was mentioned. Also no place for all the chamber-folk or progressive folk-rock from Russia or Poland.
From the new scenes it is good that the book mentioned key figures like Greg Weeks, the evolution from Tower Records to the new bands like Six Organs Of Admittance, the starter of the term apocalyptic folk by Current 93 and the term anti-folk elsewhere, while a few of the new bands which nowadays for some reason by some people are associated with the psych folk scene (MV&E,Will Oldham) should in fact be not, while the more relevant the Willkommen records label is forgotten. I personally would have included also a few real experimental acoustic projects (like at least 2 HNAS albums or the newer Cerberus Shoal).
Interesting is also how Jeannette Leach mentions the different use of the term acid folk, by Perry Leopold or by Curved's Air Sonja Christina solo album directing it again in a different context.
In the 60s psychedelic and acid which were partly associated with drugs but at the same time the psychedelic years were also an expansion of some musical possibilities opening up the musical structure. Nowadays “psychedelic” in our times has a bad name, so I have the impression it is always neglected in the magazines and newspapers until they find a new name or term. Secondly almost none of the new bands have any association whatsoever with psychedelic except for that they know something important happened in those psychedelic years. So they invented terms like wyrd folk, then weird folk or freakfolk to re-establish alternative visions on acoustic music. Today I would prefer to introduce another new term called “psyche folk” music, something which could include also all the chamber-folk, the laptopfolk and folktronica for instance and perhaps if you wish even some creative, really creative world fusion, outside the traditional world music definition, so in general covering all the music with a creative soul and a sensitivity to acoustic music. The psychedelic folk days are over. The psyche folk days have only just begun.
The book succeeds well to adapt so many important names that it still makes it an inevitable starter for the genre. The next step would be to create a few more trees of inspirations, a more relevant idea than chronological facts and personal opinions guided by interviews and magazine articles. In such a next effort a few groups like Popul Vuh would form islands. Many small islands or mini-islands can be grouped under sub categories based upon inspirational sources like loner folk, concept album, minstrel, pagan, christian etc like collectors use already.
