Favorite CDs of 2001
Ken Josenhans
have participants e-mail me their lists and I would compile, tally
and post them. No way I'd do that work today, unless I put in
the effor to automate it. The last few of the old r.m.f polls
resurfaced in Google's recent Usenet archive acquisitions,
which seem to extend coverage of rec.music.folk back to 1989 or
1990.
I wrote this for our local BBS at http://www.cyberspace.org
and I'm egotistical enough to toss it out here for y'all.
This was written for a mainstream audience rather than a
folk-enthusiast audience which is why some of it seems stilted.
By my rules, it's a 2001 album if I bought it in 2001 :)
I put in leads for the discs which aren't available through the
well-known folk importers. The heavy tilt towards Eastern Europe
this year is because my wife spent the summer in the Czech
Republic and Poland; also I'm really bored with all
aspects of the US music scene right now, even the folky ones.
Only two US artists made my cut this year; that's two more than
last year.
-------
Ilgi, SEJU VEJU
Latvian band doing their version of "electric folk:" traditional
songs and tunes arranged for rock instrumentation, intermixed with
traditional instrumentation. This band sounds similar to the
Swedish/Finnish band Hedninarna in their overall timbre.
I got to see Ilgi twice and it was the highlight of the concert year:
once in Detroit for an English-speaking audience, and once in Kalamazoo
for a Latvian-speaking audience. Audio samples (and copies for sale) at
http://www.cdroots.com; the band's own web page is http://www.ilgi.lv
Dikanda, MUZYKA CZTERECH STRON WSCHODU
(MUSIC FROM FOUR DIRECTIONS OF THE EAST)
Polish band doing folk dance tunes from all over Eastern Europe.
Fabulous rhythmic sensibility. (Band web page is at
http://www.dikanda.silesianet.pl, offering 3 very good MP3
files for slow download, and the only known source for the
CD is http://merlin.pl, a Polish equivalent to Amazon.)
(Thanks to r.m.f reader Tomasz Hornowski, who recommended Dikanda
in response to my summer query for interesting music from Poland!!)
Runrig, THE STAMPING GROUND
LIVE AT CELTIC CONNECTIONS 2000
Two good albums from Runrig this year. The split with their long-time
lead singer and their major record label seems to have been good for
them. Runrig are a Scottish arena rock band with folk influences who
might loosely be compared with Big Country.
Emmylou Harris, RED DIRT GIRL
Usually when a performer who is renowned for interpretations of
songs written by others starts writing her own material, the results
aren't too good. I don't know how Emmylou pulled it off, but this is
about as good as her epochal album WRECKING BALL.
Maddy Prior & The Carnival Band, GOLD FRANKINCENSE AND MYRRH
A Christmas album? With the corny theme of a pageant about the
Three Kings? Maddy and the Carnival Band turn it into a delightful
sonic extravaganza.
Martin Krajicek & Zdenek Kral, the K+K Band, SOULET
Teagrass, MORAVIAN LOVE SONGS
Two albums filtering American roots music through a Czech
sensibility. Martin Krajicek & Zdenek Kral are playing a fairly
smooth blend of jazz with a little acoustic rock, anchored by
piano and mandolin. Teagrass -- even their name is American --
define themselves as playing New Acoustic Music, but for this album
they invited some guest singers and set traditional Czech folk
songs. The record label for both bands has a web page with
sound samples at: http://mujweb.atlas.cz/www/gnosis_brno/Eng/
Tellu Virkkala & Liisa Matveinen, MATELI
Tellu was one of the singers in the Swedish/Finnish band
Hedningarna on their two best albums, and Liisa was singing
with the band when some of us saw them in Detroit and Seattle
in 2000. Here they tackle "runic poems" by Mateli Kuivalatar,
a Finnish poet of the early 19th century, in a very light acoustic
setting. One of the best of the Hedningarna spinoff CDs.
(Sample & buy at http://www.cdroots.com)
Rag Foundation, MINKA
Welsh folk band with a wonderful loose performance on a program of
trad songs backed up by guitar, fiddle and hurdy gurdy.
Gjallarhorn, SJOFN
Just another brilliant Swedish folk album, ho hum.
WAKE THE DEAD
Collection of Grateful Dead covers interspliced with Irish dance tunes
and performed by a collection of California musicians, including Danny
Carnahan, who I haven't heard from in quite a few years.
Maybe I'm just a sucker for the harmony vocals with Carnahan
and Sylvia Herrold.
Honorable mentions: stuff which might have made the list if I'd played
it more, but there are too many albums and too little time...
singer Mercedes Peon and piper Xose Budino from Spain; Gai Saber from the
Occitan region of Italy (I didn't even realize there *was* an Occitan
region in Italy; all the Occitan folks I ever encountered before were
from France); two albums by the Saint Nicholas Orchestra
(Orkiestra pw. sw. Mikolaja) from Poland.
regret of the year: the failure of World Entertainment Network
at http://www.wen.com, and their Internet radio shows hosted by
Froots' Ian Anderson and London DJ Charlie Gillet.
-- Ken Josenhans, 15 years on r.m.f and still a critic-wannabee
k...@netsun.cl.msu.edu
Abby Sale
>Back when the newsgroup world was a *lot* smaller I used to
>have participants e-mail me their lists and I would compile, tally
>and post them. No way I'd do that work today, unless I put in
>the effor to automate it. The last few of the old r.m.f polls
>resurfaced in Google's recent Usenet archive acquisitions,
>which seem to extend coverage of rec.music.folk back to 1989 or
>1990.
I seem to have my 1994 list hanging around waiting for you to call for it.
Can't say I've ever gotten much into Latvian music, though.
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -
I am Abby Sale - in Orlando, Florida
Boycott South Carolina!
http://www.naacp.org/news/releases/confederateflag011201.shtml