Round 2 Freakfolk

[rayge]

A Califone ― Pink & Sour



B David McWilliams – Redundancy Blues

[Deleted]

WOW..Califone ..Something I actually own in the "Freakfolk" category ! B isn't bad, but easily, Vote A

[Mr. FOLLARD]

I guess B is the man behind 'The Days Of Pearly Spencer'. It's a nice tune, similar in tone to his more famous hit, I guess there's some social commentary there. And some strings and flute to sweeten the mix so it's not just another folkie with an acoustic. Yeah, this is good.

A's pretty decent too, altho' it's closer to a funk workout, than any folk I've ever heard. I hear a little bit of Fela in there, actually. Lovely boomy sound overall. And I like those ZING! and SCRATCH! touches in the arrangement.

Pretty impressive start (well, it's where I started!) to this round - both new to me, both smart choices.

It's close, but B gets my vote here.

[Deleted]

For me A sounded like Shreikback or King Crimson in the 80s, just this ugly muso funk thing. I don't know how it fits the genre, but it doesn't really matter as I disliked it so much anyway.
B could've done with more melodic variation, but otherwise it's atmospheric instrumentation and authorative vocal scored highly for me. Nice pick.

B

[DarknessFish]

A sounds very Devendra Banhart influenced at the start, with perhaps a hint of Animal Collective or something. I dunno, who does that vocalist really remind me of, someone more famous than either Dev or Califone, anyway. Beck? Could be. It's a pleasant tumble of sounds, I don't really hear any funk in there, perhaps a touch of Afrobeat, but yeah, I like the shamanic/shambolic mood going on.

B doesn't sound like a bad pick, either. A very mannered, posh vocal which veers from Cliff to Peter Starstedt, and a nice pretty guitar line, but the extra instrumentation feels like an unnecessary studio add on to me. Y'know, arrangement being added after, to make up for something the song was lacking, rather than being an integral part of the song.

Votes me A

[Deleted]

Easy

B

[Deleted]

B is a strong folk piece, but not very 'freaky', for me? The wider production gives it a bit of psychedelic I guess, but I agree with fish, it's not needed. The mannered voice reminded me of Justin Hayward but I won't hold that against him too much.

I'll vote A, in the context of the theme.

[fange]

A is an interesting pick; folky in the sense of unusual percussion and sounds I guess, and bluesy Afro-leaning feel in some ways. Not bad on first listen. B has the stuff that's a little more my thing though, lovely acoustic playing and drifting imagery and sounds. Bonus point for flute.


B

[osgood]

A is a thing of beauty and gets my vote, also because I didn't like the mannered vocals on B.

A

[neige]

The Califone is interesting, but that's about it.

And B doesn't really qualify as freak folk, does it?

Aw, fuck it, I really enjoyed it, glad to hear there's more to the guy than Pearly Spencer

PS: Turns out the song isn't on the Best of the EMI Years CD I have.

[fonz]

A has a bit more about it

'Freakfolk'

?

[rayge]

For reasons lost in time, and perhaps wholly unfair, David McWilliams is linked inextricably and madeleine-vividly in my mind with getting the late bus back from the Canterbury campus to my digs in Broad Oak in late 1966 or early 1967. Something to do with the pirate radio ubiquity and sheer whimsical horror of fucking Pearly Spencer (incidentally, I always thought of him as a Brit - didn't realise he was Irish, or a protege of Dominic Behan). I never heard another thing from him that I haven't erased from memory, so I was hoping that A would be good enough that I didn't have to listen to B. Despite odd echoes of John Hurt's guitar, it seems more freaky than folky to me, but I've never really got a handle on what this theme means. This sounded more like the post-modern things that Tortoise and Cul de Sac put out. I like it, but I guess I really have to listen to B.

Well, not as bad as I feared, and definitely more folky, if less freaky.

Theme considerations aside, I enjoyed A more.

[Half Machine Lipschitz]

The bass player in my old 90's band recorded a vocal track on our CD that was his phonetic interpretation of a lyric that he had written and recorded being played backwards, so he basically sang the words and melody backwards and then the tape was flipped and the result was a very bizarre sounding lacov. That's what the vocal in the first verse of A sounds like to me, and which is definitely freakier than B, which I'm not even sure is folk, let alone freak folk.

A