Lisnaholic

Hi dankrsta! It's so nice to see you posting here again after such a long time. I hope you are well.
Many thanks for your compilation, which I have downloaded but not listened to yet. I only recognised one name from the bands you listed and obviously know less about Freak Folk than I imagined. oops!

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"Am I enjoying this moment? I know of it and perhaps that is enough." - Sybille Bedford, 1953

dankrsta

Hey Lisnaholic, I am well, thanks

Well, like I said, this mix was made to embody a certain vibe and theme. For a proper beginner's guide I would've probably added some other acts, like Six Organs of Admittance, Sunburned Hand of the Man, Jackie-O Motherfucker, Wooden Wand and the Vanishing Voice, No-Neck Blues Band etc. I would've basically started with New Weird America movement and then gone from there (ah well, now I have a motivation...).

After all terms free folk and freak folk were born out of that movement, and were (and I think still are) pretty much interchangeable. There were also names like new folk and wyrd folk. (I see them less now though). People can make a distinction, like free folk uses improvisation, drone and general avangarde to deconstruct folk, but to me it's not really necessary, because that's what freak-folk also implies. (I mean in the 60s, more structured songs and epic improvisational jams were all called psychedelic rock)

Term freak-folk maybe gained more traction later especially after it started incorporating more pop, song oriented, commercially attractive folk until it pretty much devolved into generic indie folk (like it always does). I like to think that this mix (and another one I'll make) is emphasizing 'freak' in the folk.

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