Folk magazine about past and present, from freak folk to minstrels.
It’s been nine years since the artists of the Dutch artist community Ruigoord set the 65ft Tower of Babel on fire – they built it in a couple of months – during the millennium festivities, on the pretext of "PSILLENNIUM PARTY OF THE CENTURY, Babylon will burn and we will have our turn". This was after the city port installations had constructed a port in the natural landscape surrounding Ruigoord. The story of the tower of Babel is derived from the bible. In the country Shinar a city was built, including a tower out of flag stones (a kind of brick) and loam that was supposed to reach the heaven. God condemned these ambitious vain plans and disrupted the construction. What was once one people with one language transformed, by God’s doing, into numerous people scattered over the world speaking their own languages. From that time on they lived in a confusion of tongues or ‘Babel-like confusion’. On 13 December 1975, the band Babel performed in the church of Ruigoord and those live recordings resulted in the rare record Babel and in this broadcast of Folk it! we play one of the songs from that record: ‘Babel Song’:
‘There was a time
They say in the books
Before Prophets had said
The words of god
Psalms were not sung
Nor blood shed
Oil stayed underground
The cotton unpicked
Men ate what they found
Within reach of their hand.
How can a Voice
Change the whole world?
A voice becomes a vote
And gets lost in the crowd.
But I’m telling you now
Before I starve to death
That I’ve been on the road
And the going’s been good
I’m alive, you see, I didn’t die.
It’s the poorest people
That gave me to eat
And they ain’t christians.
Is that what God said?’
Since it is customary to look back on the past year on New Year’s Eve, we start this Folk it! with lots of new releases from 2008, like the albums by Micah Blue Smalstone and Festival, in the spirit of the Powell Sisters, Alexis and Lindsay (see photo above). The title of the fourth album ‘Sateenkaarisuudelma’ by the Finn Sami Sänpäkkilä or his stage name Es-, known from Paavoharju and Islaja, can be translated as ‘rainbow pillow’. Dreamers can also be found in the Netherlands, such as folk singer Mariska Baars of Soccer Committee and electronic composer Rutger Zuydervelt of Machinefabriek, who together released the 12" ‘Drawn’ on MorcRecords. In this Folk it! we play much Dutch folk, like Annelies Monseré, who released her album ‘Somewhere Someone’ on MorcRecords as well, and in our demo feature you will hear the up-and-coming Anois. You will also hear the first issue of a series of 3 EPs collectively entitled ‘Neither Speak Nor Remain Silent’, by the Irish Fovea Hex. From the seventies we have the traditional folk sounds with Mediterranean and Eastern influences of the Italian group Zeit and in that same decade the record ‘Goddess of Fortune’ was released on the Hare Krishna label ‘Spiritual Sky’- in Roman mythology Fortuna was the goddess of fortune and the personification of luck. Sixties Canadian psychedelic rock band The Collectors will let you hear their version of ‘Lydia Purple’. Dr. Strangely Strange reminds us of our way of life in ‘Existence now’ and sings about a better planet, as does Earth Free! If you want to have an influence, you could go to the website www.insnet.org/feedin/. Stop global warming and support solar energy by asking our government to introduce feed-in tariffs – a success in Germany, which stimulates electricity companies to invest in solar panels! Happy New Year! TURN ON, TUNE IN, FOLK OUT!
Playlist:
CD Come, Arrow, Come! 2008. Language of Stone 005
1. Return – Festival
CD The Red River 2008. Immune 002
2. A Guest – Micah Blue Smaldone
Demo CDR Anois. no label
3. Alone I Sat – Anois
CD Somewhere Someone 2008. Morc 49
4. Somewhere Someone – Annelies Monseré
CD EP Neither Speak Nor Remain Silent: Bloom 2005. Die Stadt DS83. Janet Records JR001
5. Don’t These Windows Open – Fovea Hex
12” Soccer Committee & Machinefabriek: Drawn 2008. Morc 51
6. Di-o-day – Soccer Committee & Machinefabriek
CD Sateenkaarisuudelma 2007. Fonal Records FR-52
7. Sateenkaarisuudelma III – Es
LP Un Giorno In Una Piazza Mediterraneo 1979. Materiali Sonori MASO 009
8. Sintesi – Zeit
LP Halcyon Days 1969-1970 2007. HUX 092CD
9. Existence Now – Dr. Strangely Strange
LP The Collectors 1967. Warner Brothers/New Syndrome WS1746
10. Lydia Purple – The Collectors
LP Earth Free – Conjerti, Morreale &Dibley 1972. Void VOID46
11. Earth Free – Earth Free
LP Goddess of Fortune 1970. Spiritual Sky LYN3873
12. Sri Guruvastak – Goddess of Fortune
LP Babel 1976. Philips – 9101060
13. Babel Song – Babel
