Time to take a slightly folksy turn for today’s music picks.  I cannot deny that I’ve had this strange sort of aesthetic brewing in my head, inspired visually by things like Philadelphia’s Fairmount Park and the World’s Fairs of the late 1800’s and early 1900’s.  Or things like these 18th-century peep show box images I found on Fed by Birds, a wonderful if not tragically underposted folk art blog.  Sounds like this have helped give a little more shape to these hazy abstractions I am trying to grasp–to be able to translate this inspiration into my design would be a great accomplishment.  Anyway, hope you find some inspiration in these rustic indie tunes.

Clogs – Tides Of Washington Bridge

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are a mostly instrumental project led by Bryce Dessner and Australia’s Padma Newsome, Mount Kimbie had posted a link to this sweeping arrangement on his , and I remember having this playing in the background and forgetting it once it finally loaded (slow internet).  Later, I was wondering what is this beautiful music playing in the background.  Definitely music for being serious and introspective to, it plays like snow delicately melting off your windowsill.

RF and Lili De La Mora – Eleven Continents

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popped up on my iTunes shuffle last week, and I had no clue where I got this track from.  Either way, I have been trying to distill a folksy indie playlist out of my library of almost 8000 tracks (which by the way if you have suggestions, other than obvious Grizzly Bear and Fleet Foxes and Iron and Wine, please comment and share!), and this soothing track went perfectly.  Lili’s voice reminds me of Múm a little, and the picked strings make me think of Led Zeppelin a little, whom I haven’t thought much about in a while.  Then I remembered, I found this track on Aurgasm, people who really have their ears out in the musical wind.

Bibio – Woodington

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Well, in earlier posts, I’ve claimed to be a bigger fan of ‘s newer material, but I can’t help loving a few of his older lo-fi gems, including this one that may have slipped under a few radars, off his 2006 release, Hand Cranked.  The release is aptly titled, as much of the music has that fantastic feel of nostalgia and the sort of folksy wisps from childhood reading like Lord of the Rings, or Bridge to Terabithia, or ones I don’t even remember.  By the end, this track glows and glitters like knick-nacks unearthed in a time capsule.

Benoît Pioulard – Maginot

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I can’t really do an indie folk post without mentioning , his music was the start point into my foray into this sound.  When I first heard his music in 2006, I hadn’t heard anything quite like it.  Nowadays, I think more people have caught the wave, some have given it their own fresh spin, others have gone stale quickly.  Benoît remains radiant and inviting.  The sheer honesty of these songs is staggering, and that’s without even considering his live performance, or the wonderful artwork like shown above.  Can’t wait for this guy’s next release.

Posted in Music Posted by on Mar 10 2010 11:00 am

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