Don't go to wikipedia for your freak follk recs. Wikipedia has a bad habit of getting genre tags wrong.

Of course, RYM's description is a bit off. They consider avant-folk and freak folk to be separate (looking up more info, I realized a few days ago there's no difference... but then again, I never got into freak folk until now). Not to mention, thjeir page says freak folk evolved in the late 90's.

All I can gather is that it's a subgenre of psychedelic folk that came around during the late 60's-early 70's, and it's heavily experimental due to its avant-garde musical influence.

EDEI: My suggestion to you is go to websites like Last.fm and RYM to find albums tagged as freak folk or avant-folk, and listen to a few of those, and then decide for yourself what it's like.

Experimental folk = freak folk

.

like elphenor....i'm really confused about this "genre"...so before i list my bands i just want clarity

you all are saying basically anything tagged "freak folk", "experimental folk", and "avant folk" are all acceptable answers?

when i google the genre "freak folk" it seems every page i read...not just wiki ....basically states that 'freak folk" is a genre basically started by Devendra Banhart and is basically a neo hippy movement of traditional (i only assume the mean American not European) folk music with odd tuning strange vocals and often utilizing strange instruments

NONE of the bands i plan on listing fall under that but are tagged with one of the three seemingly acceptable tags

I fail to see how Emuma, Nico, and Tim Buckley didn't do that in the 70's.

ok

i'm not going to argue with you about what is what....i was simply trying to get a defining answer to a rather umbrella like "genre" that nobody seems to agree on....there is no need to attempt to be condescending

^ I don't know if I'm wrong, paranoid or invisible, but doesn't this link that I posted earlier give a pretty good idea of what is and isn't Freak Folk? Pedestrian's thread has a definition and a sub-link to RYM's greatest FFers.

If I'm allowed to vote, I'd like to go for:-

Big Blood
Spirogyra
Syd Barratt
David Thomas Broughton

i'll just go with it

Current 93
16 Horesepower
Comus
Angels of Light

So would John Fahey, Nick Drake, Donovan and Pentangle be Experimental Folk? How about Sad Barrettes?

OJ, let's just go with anyone tagged as freak folk or avant-folk on Discogs, Allmusic, RYM, and Last.fm.