Having witnessed Lankum's triumphant performace at The Boiler Shop on Saturday night when they carried all before them with consumate ease, I'll be curious as to where Contemporary Folk goes in 2024. It definitely seems to have the world at its feet right now.
Folk comes with innate and inbuilt self-confidence and assurance these days. A spring in its step. This wasn't always the case. In my first year at university in 1985 Fairport Convention, Steeleye Span or Pentangle albums were the last thing you would want to be seen with under an arm. That was not a cool set.
Times are changing though and I'm constantly coming upon records that immediately package themselves as Contemporary Folk and project themselves as the new cool. It's a curious and frankly to my ears and eyes a bewitching phenomena that makes Post Punk (which has carried all before it for so long) resemble increasingly yesterday's papers.
The Fall, Gang of Four, Joy Division. That's so 2022 Daddio! Don't they know that everybody's gone with the raggle taggle gypsies oh. Hey! Don't walk away. In Silence. Mike Scott where are you now? Your people are calling you back to the campfire. Grab your fiddle and join the reel.
It's weird frankly but everywhere you look there are folk turning up who clearly owe more to Kevin Rowland and Sandy Dennys inspiration than that of Ian Curtis or Mark E. Smith. The latest case is You Are Wolf's hare/hunter/moth/ghost. A quite staggering record frankly to add oi the tottering pile.
The record is much easier to absorband enjoy than its packaging, whether that's either the band's name or the album or song titles. Hey I'm not going to pretend I understand what's actually happening here. Maybe all these people are e all enrolled on or have just graduated from Irish Folklore degree courses. I can't claim to understand everything that's going on here but it's fascinating stuff and in many respects this is a quite brilliant record.
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