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Freak-Folk Grows Up

It may come as a surprise to some, but the recent folk revival—lead by such "freak"-y personages as slippery boho Devendra Banhart and elfin harp virtuoso Joanna Newsom—is showing signs of doing what the last one, in the early ‘60s, eventually did: growing up. Several new releases support this trend. Peripheral scenester P.G. Six has come of age with a solo record, Slightly Sorry, for the much-respected Drag City label. On it, Six forgoes the feyness and finger-picking of his early work for the more palatable, and accessible, rock sound of a Neil Young; and he’s even gotten himself some pro-sounding female backup singers to help complete his transition from a musician admired by his peers to one audiences will actually want to hear. Essie Jain, by contrast, is a totally new voice, but her debut album, We Made This Ourselves, manages to impress on the strength of its maturity first and foremost. The arrangements are extremely minimal, utilizing piano, slide guitar, and strings to create a stark sound as coherent as it is fragile. The same can be said of the lyrics, which eschew whimsy in favor of life experience every time.

Perhaps the greatest indicator of the more purposeful wind blowing through folk music is that two of the freshest new recordings have been released on Gnomonsong, Banhart’s own label. For their debut, The Bride Of Dynamite, Gnomonsong's Rio En Medio reportedly draw on everything from the poetry of William Blake to a 1920s Iraqi travelogue as source material. And yet, out of the unlikely ingredients of ukulele, sampler, and various electronics, chief artist Danielle Stech Homsy has created a surprisingly melodic and confident song cycle. CocoRosie's style is an obvious touchstone—and that band's Sierra Casady provided some assistance here—but Stech Homsy’s music relies less on a vague atmosphere of transgression and sex, and more on emotionally expressive song-writing. Gnomonsong’s other notable release this month has been one of the most talked-about recent indie records of any kind: The Papercuts' Can’t Go Back takes folk merely as a point of departure for a laid-back, but highly anthemic, collection of jangly pop-rock. R.E.M. fans could dig this album as much as devotees of the California turn-of-the-'70s sound, which is to say that the Papercuts are already showing the signs of a classic band in the making.

Classic pop-craft is doing pretty well in other quarters, too. Field Music's Tones of Town does an admirable job of merging one British Invasion with another—cutting the Kinks and the Who with post-punk guitar influences that have refreshingly little to do with dance. Deerhunter’s Cryptograms puts the rock in space-rock, adding faster tempos and more compelling rhythms to a genre that is often willfully unstructured and obscure. And, bringing up the rear guard, those old pros of Luna fame Dean & Britta continue with their new offering, Back Numbers, to build unassumingly on the style they’ve been cultivating for ages—drifty pop songs woven expertly around a couple of weary, but hopeful, hearts. Impressive stuff from the new and the proven alike, these releases should be more than enough to satisfy indie fans until the March 6th arrival of Arcade Fire’s sophomore album, Neon Bible.

- Nate Cunningham
02.21.07