Posts tagged with folk music
September 19, 2009 | New Music | 
by Gerry Mak |
As autumn creeps in, the temperatures drop, and the days get shorter, I’m finding myself listening to more morose and introspective music. Tiny Vipers, a one-woman band from Seattle, has been doing it for me lately with her luminous, bittersweet folk.
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August 28, 2009 | New Music | by Casper Johansson 
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Langhorne Slim’s forthcoming release is called Be Set Free and will be out in late September. This track off it, I Love You, But Goodbye, is beautiful, cinematic and cohesive, with gut-wrenching lyrics and a simple but sweet melody. We have it available for free download via the Music Download section of Lost At E Minor.
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January 30, 2009 | New Music | by Casper Johansson |
A former bare-knuckle boxer from Yorkshire, England (for real), Findlay Brown was heralded by many as the UK’s answer to Jose Gonzales when his debut album, Separated By The Sea, was released on Peacefrog Records in 2007. Love Will Find You moves beyond his earlier folk sound to a more ambitious — and soulful — place. Produced by Bernard Butler (Suede), the album features songs that are lush and intimate, influenced as much by Phil Spector and Ennio Morricone as by Roy Orbison or The Beatles. The album came together while Brown was stuck on his sister’s couch nursing a broken leg, having been run over by a cab driver: ‘I’d already started going back and listening to a lot of records I’d grown up on, like Elvis Presley, soul music, doo wop, Phil Spector, The Righteous Brothers and the like. I had an idea about making a modern record influenced by the songwriting of the late 50s and early 60s. I just started writing, trying to work out what made a universally great song, like Stand By Me. These new songs are the first part of that process’. You can download his new single, Holding Back The Night, for free in our Music Download section.
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January 19, 2009 | New Music | by Francis Andrews |
The man who brought us the masterpiece, For Emma, Forever Ago, is soon to release the follow-up EP, Blood Bank. Given the staggering acclaim For Emma received, his approach to the release must have been a nervous one, weighed down by the expectations of an entire music industry and its league of followers. Blood Bank is no disappointment, though: he calls it a ‘palette cleanser’ after For Emma, and it continues its themes of wintery isolation and introspection. The harmonies on tracks like Beach Baby are beautiful, and the production equally exquisite.
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January 6, 2009 | New Music | by Francis Andrews |
Tallest Man on Earth, the rasping Swedish folk singer-songwriter and one of the unsung heroes of 2008, recently recorded the beautiful song A Field of Birds, a nice adjunct to his summer album release, Shallow Grave. His sound is so loose and unmanicured, and carries a poignancy reminiscent of the rusty, early Bob Dylan.
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December 30, 2008 | New Music | by Gerry Mak |
Yat-Kha are a stunning Tuvan band that combines throatsinging and traditional folk music with straight-up rock. Their album ReCovers is an awesome collection of covers of songs by Led Zeppelin, Joy Division, and Motörhead among many others, reflecting their general approach to music on the rest of their impressive catalog. Despite the modern elements, the Moscow-based group still conjures the vast steppes and endless skies of the small Russian republic in southern Siberia.
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December 29, 2008 | New Events | by Gerry Mak |
I got a chance to see yet another fantastic Tuvan folk group, Alash, the other night at Barbès in New York’s Park Slope. The tiny performance area was jammed to the point where we had to wait until people left to go to the bathroom to squeeze ourselves in (the show was mentioned on NPR earlier in the day), but it was worth braving the sweltering room and precariously full beer glasses. I appreciated the fact that the band was truly acoustic, not even using microphones, so I could really hear what was going on without the distortion of amplification. The overtones of the throatsinging were quiet, but audible, and one of the igil (horse-head fiddle) players’ kargyraa (deep bass drone produced in the vestibular folds of the singer’s vocal chords) was so incredibly low, people in the room gasped in amazement.
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November 7, 2008 | New Music | by Francis Andrews |
Pink Mountaintops — a wry Canadian duo — are getting some pretty steady exposure on my stereo at the moment, and lots of others judging by their steady rise up the rock echelons. They’ve got that skaggy swagger and well-worked male/female vocal arrangements, particularly on Tourist in my Town, that drew so many people to Velvet Undergound and the other psych-stoner rock bands of that era, and the production is similarly lo-fi. Their 2004 eponymous debut album barely sold until frontman Stephen McBean released the debut album of his other band, Black Mountain, and news filtered out of this little gem. Listen to the song, Rock and Roll Fantasy.
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September 22, 2008 | New Music | by Blurt |
You may have already heard composer Nico Muhly this year on All Is Well, Samamidon’s lovely reimaginings of immigrant folk songs. (If you haven’t, you should). Mothertongue, Muhly’s second album and first for Brassland (run by members of the National), is divided into three acts. Read more
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September 20, 2008 | New Music | by Derrick Stembridge |
It’s only fitting a band of Canadian rootsters like this would tap a mythical figure of folklore for their namesake. Indeed, Ottawa’s The John Henrys understand the power of the familiar. Read more
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September 14, 2008 | Video | 
by Francis Andrews |
Over the last year or two I’ve been clandestinely concocting a list of ‘morning songs’ — those tracks that coax the sun through the curtains as you stretch your way into the day. They are the songs that will suddenly, and unexplainably, make you irresistible to the person lying next to you, just like high grade pheromones or a snatch lottery win. They’re ethereal, perhaps slightly melancholic, but also with the slightest hint of euphoria to accompany the supernatural brightening of the room. So far, though, I’ve only got three: Maria Callas and the Marriage of Figarro; Nick Drake’s classic, Cello Song, and this little gem of a piece, Como la Cigarra by Mercedes Sosa. Add as you wish, and let’s see if this baby works it’s magic.
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August 29, 2008 | New Music | by Zolton |
We love the music of Oakdale, California singer-songwriter Brett Dennen, who has one of the finest voices in contemporary pop-folk. He’s touring Australia in September with shows in Brisbane (9th), Sydney (16th) and Melbourne (17th), in support of his beautiful new album, So Much More. With that in mind, we checked in with him to get his Secret Playlist — a rundown on what music he’s listening to right now: This Time Tomorrow by The Kinks. ‘I like this song because it inspires me to wonder what the future may bring. We never know who we will become. All we have is hope and dreams. It also makes me nostalgic for the past. It makes me feel sentimental’. Read more
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June 18, 2008 | New Music | by Francis Andrews |
Bill Callahan’s Woke on a Whaleheart is a little trip I take myself on every now and then when I’m looking to really sink myself into a piece of music. Read more
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April 19, 2008 | New Music | by Gerry Mak |
When you first hear William Elliot Whitmore’s voice, it’s hard to believe he isn’t a grizzled old man. The baritone-voiced one-man-band does rousing bar room ballads on the banjo and guitar that are sure to send shivers down your spine. On closer listen, Whitmore’s voice does seem slightly affected. But like Tom Waits before him, his voice is likely to age like a good scotch.
Listen to the William Wlliot Whitemore track, Dry.
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April 18, 2008 | New Music | by Gerry Mak |
Cellist Ben Sollee is like Andrew Bird with a little more soul, or Arthur Russell with a bit more bounce. Read more
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With their improvisational, pyschedelic sound, San Francisco band Wooden Shjips are putting the proverbial finger to the formulaic output of much of the current chart toppers. We interviewed guitarist Erik “Ripley” Johnson recently. Read more
Maverick artist come architect, Michael Jantzen, has created this fantastic experiment as a design study for a modular prefabricated eco-friendly house. Read more
Scott Sternberg created the great Los Angeles label, Band of Outsiders, and it’s one of the few labels that fit a little guy like me perfectly. I live in BOO shirts. They are my second skin.
People tend to think we illustrators carry around our sketchbooks everywhere. A confession: I don’t. That is one of the reason why I love looking at other illustrator’s sketchbooks. Virginia-based Tin Salamunic’s sketchbook tells me a bit about an everyday life in Richmond. And his obsession for cars. Read more
San Francisco-based illustrator Luke Feldman has just had his first children’s book published, Chaff n’ Skaffs: Mai and the Lost Moskivvy, a collaboration with writer Amanda Chin. The book artfully tells the story of Mai, ‘a young girl who never ventured too far from her home. When a lost mosquito interrupts Mai’s sleep, her friend Chaff suggests they escort Moskivvy back home to a faraway land. So begins a courageous girl’s voyage into a fantastic world’, all communicated beautifully through Feldman’s colorful, dynamic and considered illustrations. Read more
Oh boy, this is fun. Omaha’s Tilly and the Wall are kitsch-cool-camp-vauderville meets pop-folk-flamenco, with a tap dancer for a drummer and some serious, serious charisma for a calling card.
Strip away the cookie monster vocals and downtuned, distorted guitars, it’s hard to imagine death metal still reading as death metal, but 8-bit duo Dr. Zilog manage to do just that. The Floridian sound-card tweakers make some pretty amazing original, NES tunes that are strangely compelling, catchy, and actually quite metal.
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Our celebrity-saturated culture makes many of us irrationally hateful of the faces we see on our TV screens and magazine pages. Good thing there’s Celebrity PunchOut to let off some of that steam.
1970s and 80s Soviet Union buildings
Cambodian born photographer Frederic Chaubin is the editor of French magazine Citizen K. His photo series on bizarre buildings built in the former Soviet Union during the 1970s and 80s is absolutely fascinating. Read more
Karen Caldicott’s clay head models
British born, New York-based model maker Karen Caldicott has been making clay heads for all major US publications over the last decade. Read more
Trip out with Sparrow Vs Sparrow’s retro illustrations, I love their aesthetic, color use and sense of humor. Read more
Wheeeeee! This game is so freaking fun! You move your cursor over each dot to make them split into four smaller dots ad infinitum.
Thanks to Sony Australia, four Lost At E Minor readers will win personal audio prizes, including the new 8GB Walkman S series video MP3 player and the MDRXB500 Extra Bass headphones. Read more
The Mission is part of a series of maps and images of Lauratopia, a fictional world that Brooklyn-based illustrator Laura Carmelita Bellmont has made up as a home for her imagination. The prints are archival, sized 8″ x 7″, and available for US$60. Read more
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