Back at Wychwood Festival this year, Tunng put in the gig of the year for me (so far) as they were promoting the new album Comments Of The Inner Chorus. It was their first album Mother’s Daughter And Other Songs that put an end to the idea that folk was (once again) as ancient and irrelevant as “dyed-in-the-wood politico folkies like Ewan MacColl” back in the 1950s — even if the album was inspired by the music of the film The Wicker Man.

The first track on Gather In The Mushrooms is taken from the soundtrack to the film. Tunng’s Sam Genders told me that he hadn’t even scene the film when they were writing Mother’s Daughter. The original soundtrack was by Magnet, a group put together specifically to record the soundtrack by an American composer Paul Giovanni. Magnet quickly disintegrated afterwards and Giovanni never recorded anything again, but the music resonates more today than it did even at the time of the film’s release in 1973.

While Eighteen Day Of May are not shy of a touch of the Wicker Man influence, ‘Queen Of The Moonlight World’ (by Andy Roberts, ex-The Scaffold and Pink Floyd’s The Wall Tour Band) is a song arrangement that could have been written for them when (in their Byrds mode). I bumped into the band’s guitarist Ben Phillipson recently and he tells me the band are hoping to do some more recording around Christmas, which is good news.

Eighteen Day Of May covered a Bert Jansch track on their debut album and he’s represented on the compilation with a track called ‘Silly Woman’. In the mid sixties, Jansch and John Renbourn were a guitarist duo (imaginatively called Bert & John) who went on to form the folk rock super group Pentangle. John Renbourn (with Benjamin Wetherill) will be appearing on 28th September and Jansh will be joining and Beth Orton (and a very special guest) on stage the following day. When John Peel saw Pentangle in 1969, commenting that the average age of the audience was less than seventeen, in typical fashion he said “The hall is so quiet between waves of ‘Lyke Wake Dirge’ that you can actually hear people holding their breath.”

I’ll be bringing you some more retrospective news on John Peel next month as I’ve been in touch with Julie Dyble, who I first came across earlier this year as part of the short lived duo, Trader Horn (with Jackie McAuley) on the album Loose Chippings from the Fairport Convention Family Tree. It was good to hear that she has recently started recording new material so, you never know, she may be at a future Festival Of Folk? Julie was the first singer with Fairport Convention so she has been ‘on the scene’ from the very start.

Talking of Fairport, arguably their best-known singer was Sandy Denny and ‘Milk And Honey’ (written by ex-boyfriend Jackson C. Frank) is one of her solo tracks from the mid sixties. Vashti Bunyan is described in the sleeve notes as having a ‘quavering near-whisper of a voice’ but she was another leader in the sixties folk rock explosion (while today, Mia Doi Todd has been compared to Bunyan). Another great song by a female singer is ‘Love Song’ by Lesley Duncan.

The CD ends with a very long track by a group called Comus that is all about the mushrooms (or witchcraft, rape or murder?) that as first you think is the usual psych / prog rock come free jazz self-pandering that you need to ignore. I’d urge you to reconsider, this is the opus that falls between an unlikey mix of Tunng, Eighteenth Day Of May and Pere Ubu.

While on the subject of odd, on the edge as ever is Lupen Crook (supporting Jim Moray, 20th September). The debut album Accidents Occur while Sleeping contains nothing like his ‘Rosemary Hill’ elegance but then again, there are similarities with arrangements and tempos, if not the subject matter, of Lupen’s tunes.

There are some great tracks on this CD and by the strength of the line up The Spitz, whether its acid, alt., nu, psych or just plain old folk, I think it’s safe to say the underground has survived the mushrooms. The Spitz is definitly the place to be in September for a festival of great music, even if the average age of the crowd will be over seventeen. How times change? ~Gerry Hectic

(Compiled By John Reed) (Castle Music) Cat. No.CMQCD 840 Released: 2004
Tracklisting:
1 Magnet - Corn Riggs (2:36)
2 Sallyangie - Love In Ice Crystals (3:03)
3 Pentangle - Lyke Wake Dirge (3:34)
4 Forest - Graveyard (5:44)
5 Sandy Denny - Milk And Honey (4:22)
6 Trader Horne - Morning Way (4:36)
7 Writing On The Wall - Buffalo (3:12)
8 Bert Jansch - Silly Woman (3:15)
9 Shelagh McDonald - Liz’s Song (2:50)
10 Heron - Lord And Master (4:53)
11 Spirogyra - Old Boot Wine (4:16)
12 Vashti Bunyan - Winter Is Blue (2:54)
13 Al Jones - All My Friends Are Back Again (2:36)
14 Fresh Moggots - Rosemary Hill (3:35)
15 Lesley Duncan - Love Song (3:09)
16 Mr Brooks - The Family (3:08)
17 Andy Roberts - Queen Of The Moonlight World (4:43)
18 Comus - The Herald (12:15)

Download:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=KXATBZTM

Enjoy!
Greetings, Amadeus :)