Stunning album from Welsh psych folk band No The No Ess. More here.
The latest album by The Phil Langran Band. More here.
The new album from Dutch maestro, the irrepressible Wim Oudijk – out now as a digital release - more here.
A new FREE to download EP from Pulco - get it here.
Our friends at On The Verge are promoting an all-dayer at the Polish Eagle Club in Nottingham on Saturday 18 February. It features ‘Sounds on the verge of folk’ from the likes of Nimming Ned, Kidnap Alice, Something Nasty in the Woodshed, David Gibb & Elli Lucas and many more…real ales, cider and food available throughout. Tickets £12/£8 – u16′s £5 – u5′s FREE.
Buy tickets online here: http://onthevergeevents.com/tickets
A free new Christmas single from the highly talented Daniel Maitland – free to download from now until the 12th night – enjoy:
“This is our first ever christmas single and we are more than happy to offer it as a free download to all the Folkwit family and friends up to the 12th day of Christmas. It’s philosophically a little in the Dicken’s Christmas Carol vein – with Gockenspiels, Prevarication, Childrens Choirs, Bittersweetness, Brass bands and Tubular bells.
Hope you like it as much as we do.Happy Christmas from Me, my talented producer Mr Tim Palmer and our wonderful Drummer boy Mr John Blease.”
- Daniel Maitland
Get the free single here.
We are pleased to announce that we now have a stock of the CD version of Wim Oudijk‘s album Tree courtesy of Disco Fair (NL).
Get the CD here:
Or the CD & downlaod package here:
Any of you (like us) who crave new sounds from the uniquely talented Louise Le May, feast your ears on this new song – The Lovers:
“Ash Cooke’s seventh album as Pulco is a collection of bedroom pop, stream of consciousness poems, and Cooke’s relentless quest to master noise. Small Thoughts is as much soul bearing, as it is experimental. It takes a collection of misaligned jigsaw pieces and creates a complex puzzle, full of beauty, but not readily discernible.
On the opening track, What’s In A Name, Cooke questions, “Pulco…what does it mean, anyway…it can’t be a random collection of letters, signifying nothing.” Invoking the Bard, while leading us down the rabbit hole, Cooke is at once mischievous and legitimately curious. Pulco is as much an exploration of identity and self-awareness, as it is a reflection of Cooke’s life. He is Pulco, and the album proceeds to unveil this fact through sketches of poems, songs, and random bits and clips.
The second track, Place Lid On Me, is sleepily melodic with lyrics that suggest Cooke is weary, ready to be buried. On Oxbow Lake, he compares his life to an oxbow lake, the water formation created by a river that has meandered off course, stymied and stuck. It’s at once reflective and hopeful, as he recognizes his ambition and need for a new course. The album is dotted with forthright admissions and subtle insights, all the while driven by Cooke’s steady flow of thoughts and introspection.
The album comes to a head with Travel Lodge Mirror. It opens with a beautiful bit of Spanish guitar before a narrative that has Cooke waking before a mirror, astounded by his reflection and the middle-aged man before him. As he narrates, Cooke comes to accept his lot in life and embrace his identity as “a musician, an artist, and a poet.” While he contends that his predilections for the arts will ultimately lead to his undoing, these gifts allow him to express small thoughts without appearing self-indulgent.
The album concludes with Mexican Mods Mexican Rockers, which is a cheeky attempt at providing the meaning of Pulco. My favorite explanation, “Pulco: Carlos the beardless revolutionary, leader of the Cuban revolution until it was realized that his face didn’t look good on t-shirts and posters.” He delivers definition upon definition until the album dissipates like a passing reverie, leaving the listener in a wistful, altered state. At the end of it all, it’s clear that Cooke has worked through much of the mid-life angst, and is ready to embrace his alter ego and its calling.
This is a lo-fi bedroom recording, and there are bits with kids interrupting songs, kids telling stories (i.e., Seahorse See Sheep), and sounds common to a house. For example, Old Stones sounds as if Ash left the footie game on while he taping the track. These subtle glimpses into Cooke’s life balance the introspection that mark this recording.
Musically, the album is a mish-mash of noise pop, folk, and power pop. Vocally, Cooke favors Elliott Smith. However, he’s a bit more robust and wont to see the humor in things.
In Small Thoughts, Cooke demonstrates the potential of integrated media, as he channels William Blake, Syd Barrett, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Dylan Thomas, and Frank Zappa. The subtleties and sundry pieces combine wonderfully with music to illustrate Cooke’s process of reflection and acceptance of mid-life.”
- The Dadada
Lyrics: 20/20
Composition: 16/20
Musicianship: 15/20
Production: 17/20
Originality: 10/10
Intangibles: 10/10
Score: 88/100
http://thedadada.com/2011/12/03/7639/
Folkwit records are proud to release the latest album by The Phil Langran Band – a wonderfully crafted album with songs based on the work of American poet Langston Hughes alongside composition by Phil Langran himself.
Jukebox Love Songs, Leaving Blues, Border Crossings & Lovers’ Laments – The Phil Langran Band – £8.99 + P&P
More here.
Join us this Friday – 9 December – at the Nottingham Contemporary for the official launch of The Phil Langran Band‘s new album:
Jukebox Love Songs, Leaving Blues, Border Crossings & Lovers’ Laments – The Phil Langran Band
Release date: 9 December 2011
More here.
Pulco has a spanking new website!
You can find it at www.pulcomusic.com
Bookmark this site (if you haven’t already) and pop over for a look.
It’s Tree time! An extraordinary new album from Dutch maestro, the irrepressible Wim Oudijk – out now as a digital release:
Tree – Wim Oudijk (f0070) – Digital Release
Reviews:
“Imagine a parallel universe where Brian WIlson and Van Dyke Parks had been allowed to complete Smile in 1967; where Mike Love’s objections were recognised for the mewling drivel they were, and the album became a global smash hit. Now imagine that a Capitol Records executive had been dispatched 12 months later to ask a fully-functioning Brian if he could deliver more of the same – only this time to make it even further out. Wim Oudijk’s ‘Tree’ is what it would have sounded like.”
- Chris Evans, Journalist & Broadcaster (The Curve Ball, WCR FM)
Wim Oudijk
A great new FREE to download EP from Pulco – highly recommended:
Sketchbook Season (f0066) – FREE Download EP
Reviews:
“Unsettling looped harmonies, running water and breathy whistling. You never quite know what you’re going to come across in a Pulco record, and that’s part of its charm. Sketchbook Season continues in the ‘lofi misery poet’ style that we’ve come to know and admire (albeit maybe at a distance).The opening track – Whistle frog finds a way – is the perfect mix of obscurity and dischordant melody to suck your ears in and have its tune going round and round your head for hours like some sort of fucked up merry go-round. It wouldn’t seem out of place as the indie background to some hip new-media viral TV advert.
In amongst the weirdness though, there’s plenty of deep, wavy sounds to let yourself sink into. Don’t Stand Down is quietly beautiful, and Party Started has enough chorus-filled guitars and sunny synths to feel like it’s on some mad, drugged out trip.
There’s plenty more to this well thought-out and intricate little EP, but you can check it out for yourself, as it’s released…free via Folkwit Records.”
- Stephen McLeod, ArtRocker“What better way to describe Autumn than the term that titles the new EP from Pulco? Sketchbook Season is out on November 21st from Folkwit Records and it’s another charming collection from Ash Cooke.
Ash Cooke is adept at producing music that sounds as if it was casually developed. And then you listen to all the pieces in the songs, and the melody catches you, and you then appreciate what care went into these works…More the fuzz-pop of Ariel Pink than the automatic drawing-inspired sonic sketches of solo Bill Nelson…Sketchbook Season will be out on November 21 via Folkwit Records. Mark your calendars!”
- A Pessimist is Never Disappointed
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