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Standard Fare - The Noyelle Beat (LP)

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Avi Buffalo - What’s It In For? (single)

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Album Review

Various Artists Folk Is Not A Four Letter Word
Delay 68 Records

Article written by Ged M
Mar 8, 2005.

Compiled by Andy Votel of Twisted Nerve Records, this starts with a message: “listen you dandelions, don’t try to be daisies…be content, be yellow”. That sets the hippy tone for at least some of the record, a compilation of obscure late 60s and very early 70s music loosely falling within the term ‘folk’. While it’s something of an acquired taste, it’s hard to dismiss when you learn that it’s been sampled by Super Furry Animals and realise that this music foreshadows the Beta Band and any number of nu-folk musicians, among others.

The funniest track is the version of ‘Scarborough Fair’ played by session musicians on medieval instruments and tagged as “folksploitation” by Votel. Among the Joni Mitchell soundalikes, Brigitte Fontaine’s icy-cool French pop of ‘Brigitte’ stands out, as does The Poppy Family’s “bubblegum folk” that has a disturbing psychedelic edge. ‘Cefalea’ is a weird amalgam of styles – I can hear blues, r’n’b and country – from a Spanish outfit, Musica Dispersa, that sounds a little like Os Mutantes. Best of all is ‘By The Sea’ by Wendy and Bonnie, which has shades of ‘Willow’s Song’ from The Wicker Man and has definitely been an influence on the sound of Broadcast and Stereolab.

Though it's a bit of a curate’s egg, it follows the fashion for saving lost tracks for posterity (see also ‘Meridian 70’). A diversion into this very weird world throws up a couple of classics and suggests that while folk, technically, is a four letter word, it’s a convenient shorthand for the freaked-out-weird-sex-hippy-pagan-demon-beast that lurks at the heart of the best of it.

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