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From the leaders of the dubiously dubbed "freak folk" movement comes this record, a brambled nexus of sound, as quaverous organs and guitars, humid vocals, and florid tape manipulations all intertwine. "Alternating heartrending drone and quietly affecting folk carved by taciturn hermits, [Badgerlore] speaks through distant symbols, inky clouds, and thin pine needle patterns on the floor. These pipers at the gates of dusk are holed up against the witching hour, creating beauty within a crumbling, musky night" - Pitchfork.
We were never looking for a 'freak folk' supergroup, I mean with rock music you kind of expect it - a coked up industry party, after hours bourbon-sipping and in a drunken,hedonistic stupor the asymmetrically haircutted buffoon from a badly punctuated rock band agrees to do form a band with a similarly afflicted singer. 'Freak folk' though, it's much more sprawling - I'm sure there are parties somewhere where the scene's top celebs (Devendra, Islaja, Vashti, Sunburned Hand of the Man?) swap stories about gardening and ancient Egyptian history while they sip their organic smoothies and shuffle around the room awkwardly, but I certainly haven't found one. Clearly Badgerlore however stumbled into thismysterious world, a meeting of some of the finest minds in thewhole darned scene, we have Rob Fisk (ex-Deerhoof), Ben Chasny (Six Organs of Admittance), Liz Harris (Grouper), Tom Carter (Charalambides), Pete Swanson (Yellow Swans) and Glen Donaldson (Thuja, Jewelled Antler Collective) ganging up together to create a record of epic proportions. Don't get worried, it's still quiet and measured, but somehow with 'We are all Hopeful Farmers, we are all Scared Rabbits' we get what we really want to hear, an album that truly sounds like a collaboration with all of the artists involved. I can hear fragments of Liz Harris's patented swirling ghostly vocals, occasional lapses into Chasny's raga-folk, the submerged, soil-drenched sound of Thuja, Tom Carter's signature fretwork, Pete Swanson's noisy abandonment and Rob Fisk's haphazard attention to detail. Rather than sounding like the mess of ideas it so easily could have been the record is challenging and involving, redefining a movement rather than being seduced by its trappings. Calm and delicate at all times, we catch these musicians at that point where late night turns into early morning, as the day birds make their first calls and small nocturnal animals scurry into their wooden homes. This is somehow what the Jewelled Antler Collective were hinting at for so long - they got close with Thuja, but here I think the collaborative elements make the record a kind of logical progression, a step forward if you will. At the same time desperately experimental and hugely enjoyable to listen to Badgerlore's second full-length is exactly what I want to be hearing right now, and proof that supergroups can be just as good as the names might suggest. An incredible record - buy it!
专辑曲录:
01-Furbearer 02-Goodnight, Sweet Rabbits 03-The Crops that You Tend 04-Whichever 05-We Are All Hopeful Farmers 06-Mountain Wine 07-Snowballs for Reuven 08-Grow Your Hair 09-Duet 10-When I Look at Your Face, I See Timothy
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