Kayo Dot live on WMBR

Here is a gem - a Kayo Dot bootleg from the "choirs of the eye" era (march 2004 specifically.) They perform beautiful renditions from their debut album, which is totally on its own sonic plane. Music of this nature had never been recorded until these individuals got together, dropped a groove and went with it. Choirs of the Eye is available on CD at Tzadik Records. Do everyone within earshot of your speakers a favor and download this.


1. The Antique
2.Marathon
3.Wayfarer

live on 88.1 WMBR

Josephine Foster - Hazel Eyes, I Will Lead You

In 2005 I happened to be at a show where Josephine Foster was playing, and from the moment she picked up a guitar I was totally captivated. People call this stuff the "new weird america" but I just see a remergence of themes that have been with humanity from the onset. As long as there are people, there will be folk music.

That said this is Foster's first solo album and a departure from her earlier work with Born Heller and the Supposed, two entirely different avenues that are worth exploring. These are ballads from a sonic place most of us forgot we knew about, songs with a bizarre familiarity that I believe comes from the deep-seated conciousness manifested in this music.

From a Dusted review:

"Accompanying herself with all manner of (literal) bells and whistles, as well as guitar, harp, sitar, tambourine, ukulele, and homemade percussion, Foster slides her voice around tinny irregular plucks, minor key-clawing, trembling flute notes, and wooden clicks and clacks...There’s a disconcerting stillness to much of Hazel Eyes, I Will Lead You, a privileging of inertia that succumbs here and there to the swarm of strings, but returns always to a resting state. Foster resists order. Her voice flickers like pale flame around lyrics you’d expect to find in the ballads("I fell down among the splinters / Of a rose of the tree / My true lover planted thee"), constantly wandering and rarely returning twice over the same ground. "

The vinyl is long out of print as far as i know but the CD is available at http://www.locustmusic.com. Her latest album The Coming Gladness is out on Bo'Weavil Recordings. This is some special stuff.

"The Siren's Admonition" – 4:24
"Hazel Eyes, I Will Lead You" – 3:26
"By the Shape of Your Pearls" – 1:22
"Stones Throw from Heaven" – 3:18
"Where There Are Trees" – 1:22
"The Golden Wooden Tone" – 3:01
"There Are Eyes Above" – 3:50
"Celebrant's Song" – 3:41
"Good News" – 3:07
"Trees Lay By" – 2:59
"The Pruner's Pair" – 3:10
"Crackerjack Fool" – 2:40
"The Way Is Sweetly Mown" – 4:44
"Hominy Grits" – 2:21

Mushroom Ceremony of the Mazatec Indians of Mexico

Here is an example of why Folkways is one of my favorite labels to ever publish music. This is a field recording from the long strange trip of our main man Gordon Wasson, who left Wall Street for Northern Mexico after his Russian bride turned him onto some mushrooms.

He went on to "discover" several species of psychoactive mushrooms as well as an interesting plant he called Salvia divinorum. What he managed to record here is a full shamanistic ceremony on record, and some heavy material to say the least. From the bio:

"DR WASSON, A PIONEER IN THE STUDY OF THE ROLE OF MUSHROOMS IN RELIGIOUS RITUAL, GIVES US A TRANSCRIPTION OF AN AUTHENTIC "CONSULTATION" OF THE SACRED MUSHROOM, IN SOUND. THE OCCASION WAS THE ILLNESS OF A YOUTH. THE MUSHROOM, THROUGH THE MOUTH OF MARIA SABINA, A FEMALE SHAMAN, DECREED THAT THE BOY MUST DIE. HE HEARD THE BAD NEWS AND DIED DAYS LATER. DR. WASSON TAPED THE ENTIRE VELADA. DR. WASSON IS ABLE TO PROVE THAT THE WORDS AND UNDOUBTEDLY THE CHANT ARE PRE-CORTES, GOING BACK FOR MANY CENTURIES. NOTHING LIKE THIS RECORD HAS BEEN DONE FOR THE NEW WORLD; IT IS RIVALED IN THE OLD WORLD ONLY BY THE VEDIC CHANTS OF INDIA".

Recorded by V. P. & R. G. Wasson in Huautla de Jiménez, in the Mazatec Mountains in the northern corner of the State of Oaxaca, July 21, 1956.

1. Chjon Nka
2. Chjon Nka Catsin
3. Santo...nana
4. Papa Papai
5. Na Ai - Ni Tso
6. Santo...Ji nai...na
7. Jan Jesu Cristo
8. Ji Nai
9. San Pedro
10. Soso Soso
11. Name of Plants
12. Pedro Martinez
13. Don't Be Concerned, Old One
14. Birds
15. Humming, etc.
16. Soft Singing
17. Finale

Wino - Punctuated Equilibrium

kickin it off right;

Punctuated Equilibrium, WINO's solo album fresh out on Southern Lord, this shit rages like only Wino can. there isn't a bad song on this album. get the mp3s while you wait on the sweet LP release comin soon.



01. Release Me
02. Punctuated Equilibrium
03. The Woman In The Orange Pants
04. Smilin Road
05. Eyes of The Flesh
06. Wild Blue Yonder
07. Secret Realm Devotion
08. Water Crane
09. Gods, Frauds, Neo-Cons and Demagogues
10. Silver Lining

by the way, google "punctuated equilibrium" (not the album) and if you can tell me whats up with that shit i'd really appreciate it.

look for :

appalachian issues, album uploads, news from the Front.


what ever's up.