Contemporary folk music lost one of its brightest stars with the passing of Jack Rose last December. Along with Ben Chasny (Six Organs of Admittance), Sir Richard Bishop, and DC fav James Blackshaw, Rose was counted among the best acoustic guitar players of the post-John Fahey era and was just 38 when his life was tragically cut short by a heart attack. Like Fahey, Rose was fascinated by the music of pre-WWII America, and was highly regarded not only as a musician but as a connoisseur and collector of early recordings. Self-taught on the 6-, 12-string and lap steel guitar, [...]

2009 foi um ano do caralho para a música (leia-se, espetacular, fantástico, fabuloso, ou qualquer outro adjectivo hiperbólico que desejem aqui encaixar). Pronto, não tenho mais nada a dizer. É isto. 35. Wolf Eyes - "Always Wrong" (Hospital Productions) 34. Pterodactyl - "Worldwild" (Jagjaguwar) 33. Big Business - "Mind the Drift" (Hydra Head) 32. Black Cobra - "Chronomega" (Southern Lord) 31. Eagle Twin - "The Unkindness of Crows" (Southern Lord) 30. Sunset Rubdown - "Dragonslayer" (Jagjaguwar) 29. Greymachine - "Disconnected" (Hydra Head) 28. Sholi - "Sholi" [...]
Stupid scientists still haven't invited the teleporter, and thanks to that I will be missing Jonna Karanka aka the Finnish forest psychfolk/experimentation amazer Kuupuu tonight. The reason being, I'm floored from last night's Trus'me performance, and the concert is on the other side of the city at Arkaoda, and you know I never go to the other side of the city anyways. Just might break that rule for once, for the upcoming Sir Richard Bishop concert though, once again organized by the amazing Bant team . Still, spent most of the day listening to her [...]

Chegamos assim à pior altura do ano na vida de um blogue. Aquela altura fatídica tão temida, em que temos de escolher alguns de entre tantos de que tanto gostámos... Portanto, sem mais delongas, e antes que eu mude de ideias, aqui estão, na minha modesta opinião, os 30 melhores concertos do ano transacto. Ordenados por ordem crescente de preferência, como é habitual aqui no pasquim. 30. Dead Meadow @ Primavera Sound, Barcelona, 28.05 29. Shooting Spires + VRBLS @ O Século, Lisboa, 24.06 [...]
For the 12th year Brainwashed Readers have voiced their opinion on the best and worst music of the year. While some of the results shouldn't come as a surprise, there are, as always, plenty of anomalies. Brainwashed Readers have once again, and probably moreso than any other previous year, distanced themselves from the mainstream. Thanks to all who took part. As always, the Brainwashed Staff have added their comments. Album of the Year:Sunn O))), Monoliths Dimensions Their best album by a country mile. I get the feeling their collaborators have a lot to do with [...]

* White Magic's New Egypt was one of the more exciting records I heard in 2009 -- effortless, with Mira improvising vocals and yipping over a hazy, driving trance groove that's like an Alicia Keyes locked groove on a turntable immersed in laudanum * Several bands in 2009 put out records full of songs that sounded like they'd been taken from 70s AM radio archives, stripped down to their beats, and then [...]

Numa altura em que a maioria já fez as suas escolhas musicais de referência para este ano, nós gostamos sempre de deixar essa época de balanços para a última semana. Isto porque contas feitas, foram dezenas ou centenas de discos que nos passaram pelos ouvidos e nos acompanharam nestes últimos 365 dias. Tarefa por vezes árdua mas que nos obriga a separar águas em relação ao que realmente merece destaque. 2009 teve boas surpresas, algumas desilusões, regressos aguardados e estreias fascinantes. Confirmou-se o valor indiscutível de certos artistas e num ano que também coincide com o final de década torna-se [...]
Hello audience, I'm Evan. It's time again for me to put effort into composing a blog entry. That's right, today is the day you'll get to read my year-end list devoted to the 100 best albums released in 2009. Like last year, I can't possibly write 100 blurbs for all the albums on this list, so I've prepared about 25 mini-reviews to go along with song samples from about 25 of the albums. As far as I know, all these albums were released in 2009, but I am an imperfect human, so there might be an error or two. Instead [...]

I've processed some of the best of lists in my bookmarks folder. Here are some of the more interesting and/or diverse ones. I'm trying to wrap up my own list, but damn these lists always give you lots to catch up. + Simon Reynolds' Notes on the Noughties + The Essential : All Charts by Boomkat + The Milk Factory 2009 : Vladislav Delay, Peter Broderick & Machinefabriek, Moritz von Oswald Trio, King Midas Sound, Broadcast & The Focus Group, ( The Milk Factory ) [...]

yawn..... the best (in no particular order): open strings : early virtuoso recordings from the middle east (honest jons) peter wright : snow blind (install) bassholes : and without a name (columbus discount) cheater slicks : bats in the dead trees [...]

It's been 10 days since we lost Jack Rose , and we've spent a good deal of that time listening to his music and his inspirations. First I was going to share a few songs but then the list grew and I knew I had to try to make a mix. I don't know if I succeeded in making something coherent but I'm confident the music reflects at least a part of his passion. I also don't know how it sounds to make a tribute mix and add songs made by him, maybe it's not the usual way to [...]

photos by Ryan Muir Like Lee Ranaldo , Bill Callahan 's Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle was one of my favorite albums of the year. Bill is currently on tour in the South with his labelmates (and Brooklyn residents) Lights . They won't come anywhere near NYC unfortunately - the last chance we had to see Bill was during his June tour [...]

While I'm on the subject of guitarists influenced by John Fahey, I'd like to pay respects to Jack Rose, an extremely talented solo guitarist who sadly died today of an apparent heart attack. While Rose was strongly influenced by Fahey, he also incorporated eastern music, especially raga, into his vast body of work, much like Sir Richard Bishop and Robbie Basho. Rose also played in a prominent drone band (as prominent as a drone band can be, I mean) called Pelt. Rose was immensely talented, somewhat prolific, and hardly well-known throughout his 15+ year career. [...]

Valentina de Andrade received her gift of prophecy in 1981. Her neighbors found her talents of clairvoyance and fortune telling remarkable, and she became a trusted seer in the backwater Amazonian town of Altamira. She was also the leader of "Lineamiento Universal Superior" (L.U.S. -- Superior Universal Alignment), a group that believed that the end of the world would come in 1986, with extraterrestrial space ships saving only the sect's followers. Valentina's preaching started in 1981 after having received extraterrestrial messages through divine cosmic beings. Valentina embarked upon her mission [...]
If there's one man in the world that I'd like to meet in person, it's Our Man From Odessa, OMFO : It all started in a chaikhana somewhere in Central Asia. As I was enjoying a bowl of tea, suddenly the east of my brain started to send strange signals to my body. And then my vision of the world turned into the abstract motif of a Turkmen rug. The whole universe transformed into a carpet ornament. The sound of prayer calls, noisy bazaars and barking dogs dissolved into the eerie desert wind. [...]
On his latest output The Freak of Araby , former Sun City Girls guitar hero Sir Richard Bishop pays homage to the Middle East. What exactly is Richard Bishop? A dealer in the exotic? A dabbler in esoteric mysticism? A "traveling salesman"? The Freak of Araby doesn't make Bishop's worldview any simpler for us, but it does clarify it some. He is, first and foremost, a traveler, picking up inspiration as he roams, but he is also a worshiper at the altar of the guitar, occasionally himself transforming into a guitar hero/idol. [...]

B arn Owl are Evan Caminiti and Jon Porras, a new duo following in the experimental folk tradition of Sir Richard Bishop, Tom Carter and Steffen Basho-Junghans, and more recently Wooden Wand & The Vanishing Voice and Headdress. Their music roams freely with no concrete destination in sight. The ten loosely constructed instrumental compositions that comprise their debut album are crafted from acoustic and electric guitars, bass guitar, banjo, harmonica, synthesizer, organ, and drums. A few slow strums across guitar strings give way to a cycles of short picked melodic [...]

The Sunset Tavern September 12, 2009 Seattle, WA The tiny bar known as The Sunset Tavern has always played host to the misfits of the underground; musicians and artists so tired of being shoved into the small niche of genre and style that they continually push back despite the fact that the fact they'll never be able to shake the labels we give as place-holding descriptors. Thankfully the four individuals who graced the stage at The Sunset on September 12th don't give two shits about how their albums are categorized by journos and record [...]

Helena Espvall & Masaki Batoh Overloaded Ark ( Drag City ) Similar Sounds: Ghost, Espers, Sir Richard Bishop File Under: experimental, world, hi/low Other Reviews: Helena Espvall & Masaki Batoh Unlike the duo's first global pairing, Overloaded Ark is much more an experimental take on tones and textures than its self-titled predecessor. The mashing of Arabic and Mediterranean rhythms with layered drones, horror movie strings, [...]

Here we are again - Lonesome is five today. Happy birthday to us. As we've both said, this site is a bit like a public extension of the kind of rambling conversation that we've been having for a good couple of decades now - we used to swap tapes, then CDs and now we do most of it here on the web. It's a source of wonder and delight that you lot listen, seem to like it and even join in. So let's celebrate with some cracking old-school country, a [...]