Guitarist David Roback's paisley underground origins with the Rain Parade and Opal are obvious here. Hope Sandoval comes on board as vocalist, with 'Blue Flower' and 'She Hangs Brightly' both showing her grip on the darker side of 60s psych is fully intact. Elsewhere things have a much lighter and eminently pleasing folksy feel to them.
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Further Flying Saucer Attack 1995 [Drag City]
Often categorised as spacey shoegazers, FSA's sophomore effort contains beautifully restrained folksy passages of "rural psychedelia" - a term borrowed from the popular title of their first album. The Bristol outfit primarily consisted of guitarists/vocalists David Pearce and Rachel Brook, with Brook departing the year Further was released.
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Barafundle Gorky's Zygotic Mynci 1997 [Fontana]
Offbeat psychedelic folk outfit that occasionally does songs in their native Welsh language, as with 'Pen Gwag Glas' from this album. Unlike most of the UK's folk-oriented psych artists, the music here owes more to Devendra Banhart and Sufjan Stevens than to the 'wyrd folk' scene that proliferated in the 60s. Topnotch record.
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Sung Tongs Animal Collective 2004 [FatCat]
Avant-garde outfit of school chums who occasionally get together in various combinations and put out a record. Here Avey Tare (David Portner) and Panda Bear (Noah Lennox) feature as a duo playing some nifty psych-folk using acoustic guitars and minimalist backing. The result earned the band a healthy cult following.
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The Milk-Eyed Mender Joanna Newsom 2004 [Drag City]
Celtic harpist who is promoted as playing avant-garde Appalachian folk and bluegrass. On listening, however, Newsom's music would appear to owe most of its heritage to the type of acid folk popular in Britain in the early-70s. Her girlish voice may wear thin after a while, but for the most part has a kind of nursery rhyme charm.
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Feels Animal Collective 2005 [FatCat]
All four members of the collective were back for the follow-up to 2004's critically acclaimed Sung Tongs album. Feels sees the band remaining firmly in avant-garde territory, letting their freak flag fly with a more textured approach than on the previous effort. A successful global tour followed earning the band critical praise and some commercial success.
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Yellow House Grizzly Bear 2006 [Warp]
Psychedelic folk outfit from Brooklyn that is just as at home with lushy produced statements as with delicate character studies. Named for guitarist/songwriter Ed Droste's mother's house where it was recorded, the album received widespread critical plaudits on release. The band's other mainstay is Daniel Rossen, also a guitarist/songwriter.
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Espers II Espers 2006 [Drag City]
The third album from Philadelphia psych folk outfit Espers, so-named because it is their second set of original material. Drawing heavily on late-60s English 'wyrd folk' for inspiration, the tracks here manage to pull Anglo-folk's past into line with neo-psych's dazzling present. The production suffers in places, but this is a group well worth watching.
