New Weird America
Encyclopedia
New Weird America describes a subgenre of psychedelic
and indie music, often psych folk
, of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
in the August 2003 issue of The Wire
, following the Brattleboro Free Folk Festival
organized by Matt Valentine and Ron J. Schneiderman. It is a play on Greil Marcus
's phrase "Old Weird America" as described in his book Invisible Republic
, which deals with the lineage connecting the pre-World War II folk performers on Harry Smith's
Anthology of American Folk Music
to Bob Dylan
and his milieu.
and English and Scottish groups, such as Pentangle
, The Incredible String Band, Donovan
, and Comus
. It also finds inspiration in such disparate sources as heavy metal
, free jazz
, electronic music
, noise music
, various ethnic musics, musique concrète
, tropicália, and early- and mid-20th century American folk music
. Another primary inspiration is outsider music
, often played by technically naïve and/or socially estranged musicians, such as The Shaggs
, Roky Erickson
, and Jandek
.
Other genre classifications with similar aesthetics are psychedelic rock
, psych folk
, freakbeat
, and freak folk
.
The music has been covered extensively by L.A.-based Arthur
, which ran in-depth pieces on Devendra Banhart
, Joanna Newsom
, CocoRosie
, Animal Collective
, and Six Organs of Admittance
, released the compilation The Golden Apples of the Sun
, and curated the ArthurFest
(2005) and ArthurBall (2006), featuring a variety of artists from the movement.
Psychedelic
The term psychedelic is derived from the Greek words ψυχή and δηλοῦν , translating to "soul-manifesting". A psychedelic experience is characterized by the striking perception of aspects of one's mind previously unknown, or by the creative exuberance of the mind liberated from its ostensibly...
and indie music, often psych folk
Psych folk
Psychedelic folk or psych folk is a loosely defined form of psychedelic music that originated in the 1960s through the fusion of folk music and psychedelic rock...
, of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Origin of the term
The term is generally believed to have been coined by David KeenanDavid Keenan
David Keenan is a Scottish author, critic and musician. He is the author of England's Hidden Reverse, a biography of Coil, Current 93 and Nurse With Wound, a regular contributor to The Wire since 1995, and proprietor of Volcanic Tongue, a shop, distributor, record label and mailorder business that...
in the August 2003 issue of The Wire
The Wire (magazine)
The Wire is a British avant garde music magazine, founded in 1982 by jazz promoter Anthony Wood and journalist Chrissie Murray. The magazine initially concentrated on contemporary jazz and improvised music, but branched out in the early 1990s to various types of experimental music...
, following the Brattleboro Free Folk Festival
Brattleboro Free Folk Festival
The Brattleboro Free Folk Festival is an annual music festival which takes place in Brattleboro, Vermont, USA. The festival began in 2003....
organized by Matt Valentine and Ron J. Schneiderman. It is a play on Greil Marcus
Greil Marcus
Greil Marcus is an American author, music journalist and cultural critic. He is notable for producing scholarly and literary essays that place rock music in a much broader framework of culture and politics than is customary in pop music journalism.-Life and career:Marcus was born in San Francisco...
's phrase "Old Weird America" as described in his book Invisible Republic
Invisible Republic
Invisible Republic: Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes is a book by music critic Greil Marcus about the creation and cultural importance of The Basement Tapes, a series of recordings made by Bob Dylan in 1967 in collaboration with The Hawks, who would subsequently become known as The Band...
, which deals with the lineage connecting the pre-World War II folk performers on Harry Smith's
Harry Everett Smith
Harry Everett Smith was an American archivist, ethnomusicologist, student of anthropology, record collector, experimental filmmaker, artist, bohemian and mystic...
Anthology of American Folk Music
Anthology of American Folk Music
The Anthology of American Folk Music is a six-album compilation released in 1952 by Folkways Records , comprising eighty-four American folk, blues and country music recordings that were originally issued from 1927 to 1932.Experimental filmmaker and notable eccentric Harry Smith compiled the music...
to Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
and his milieu.
Musical style
The musical style described as New Weird America is derived mainly from psychedelic rock and folk groups of the 1960s and 1970s, including American performers Holy Modal RoundersHoly Modal Rounders
The Holy Modal Rounders were an American folk music duo from the Lower East Side of New York City which started in the early 1960s, consisting of Peter Stampfel and Steve Weber. Their unique blend of folk music revival and psychedelia gave them a cult-like following from the late 1960s into the 1970s...
and English and Scottish groups, such as Pentangle
Pentangle (band)
Pentangle are a British folk rock band with some folk jazz influences. The original band were active in the late 1960s and early 1970s and a later version has been active since the early 1980s...
, The Incredible String Band, Donovan
Donovan
Donovan Donovan Donovan (born Donovan Philips Leitch (born 10 May 1946) is a Scottish singer-songwriter and guitarist. Emerging from the British folk scene, he developed an eclectic and distinctive style that blended folk, jazz, pop, psychedelia, and world music...
, and Comus
Comus (band)
Comus is a British progressive rock / folk band which had a brief career in the early 1970s; their first album, First Utterance, gave them a cult following which persists. They have revived in the late 2000s and played several festivals.-History:...
. It also finds inspiration in such disparate sources as heavy metal
Heavy metal music
Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...
, free jazz
Free jazz
Free jazz is an approach to jazz music that was first developed in the 1950s and 1960s. Though the music produced by free jazz pioneers varied widely, the common feature was a dissatisfaction with the limitations of bebop, hard bop, and modal jazz, which had developed in the 1940s and 1950s...
, electronic music
Electronic music
Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound...
, noise music
Noise music
Noise music is a term used to describe varieties of avant-garde music and sound art that may use elements such as cacophony, dissonance, atonality, noise, indeterminacy, and repetition in their realization. Noise music can feature distortion, various types of acoustically or electronically...
, various ethnic musics, musique concrète
Musique concrète
Musique concrète is a form of electroacoustic music that utilises acousmatic sound as a compositional resource. The compositional material is not restricted to the inclusion of sounds derived from musical instruments or voices, nor to elements traditionally thought of as "musical"...
, tropicália, and early- and mid-20th century American folk music
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
. Another primary inspiration is outsider music
Outsider music
Outsider music, a term coined by Irwin Chusid in the mid-1990s, are songs and compositions by musicians who are not part of the commercial music industry who write songs that ignore standard musical or lyrical conventions, either because they have no formal training or because they disagree with...
, often played by technically naïve and/or socially estranged musicians, such as The Shaggs
The Shaggs
The Shaggs were an American all-female rock group formed in Fremont, New Hampshire in 1968. The band was composed of sisters Dorothy "Dot" Wiggin , Betty Wiggin , Helen Wiggin , and later Rachel Wiggin ....
, Roky Erickson
Roky Erickson
Roky Erickson is an American singer, songwriter, harmonica player and guitarist from Texas. He was a founding member of the 13th Floor Elevators and a pioneer of the psychedelic rock genre.-Biography:...
, and Jandek
Jandek
Jandek is the musical project of an anonymous outsider musician who operates out of Houston, Texas. Since 1978, Jandek has self-released over 60 albums of unusual, often emotionally dissolute folk and blues songs without ever granting more than the occasional interview or providing any biographical...
.
Other genre classifications with similar aesthetics are psychedelic rock
Psychedelic rock
Psychedelic rock is a style of rock music that is inspired or influenced by psychedelic culture and attempts to replicate and enhance the mind-altering experiences of psychedelic drugs. It emerged during the mid 1960s among folk rock and blues rock bands in United States and the United Kingdom...
, psych folk
Psych folk
Psychedelic folk or psych folk is a loosely defined form of psychedelic music that originated in the 1960s through the fusion of folk music and psychedelic rock...
, freakbeat
Freakbeat
Freakbeat is the name used for rare, collectable, and obscure British Invasion records, particularly from 1966 and 1967. Elements of the freakbeat sound include strong direct drum beats, loud and frenzied guitar riffs, and extreme effects such as: fuzztone, flanging, distortion and compression or...
, and freak folk
Freak folk
Freak folk is a genre of folk music associated with contemporary artists such as Faun Fables, Animal Collective, Davenport, Devendra Banhart,CocoRosie, Panda Bear, Kelli Ali, Joanna Newsom, Bowerbirds, Woods, Greg Weeks, Hecuba, Akron/Family, Rio en Medio, Birdengine, Sufjan Stevens, Sean Hayes,...
.
The music has been covered extensively by L.A.-based Arthur
Arthur (magazine)
Arthur magazine, a free bi-monthly 50,000-copy periodical, was founded in October, 2002 by publisher Laris Kreslins and editor Jay Babcock. It has received favorable attention from other periodicals such as L.A. Weekly, Print, Punk Planet and Rolling Stone...
, which ran in-depth pieces on Devendra Banhart
Devendra Banhart
Devendra Obi Banhart is a singer-songwriter and visual artist. Banhart was born in Houston, Texas and was raised by his mother in Venezuela, until he moved to California as a teenager. He began to study at the San Francisco Art Institute in 1998, but dropped out to perform music in Europe, San...
, Joanna Newsom
Joanna Newsom
Joanna Newsom is an American harpist, pianist and singer-songwriter from Nevada City, California.- Early life :Newsom grew up in the small town of Nevada City, California...
, CocoRosie
CocoRosie
CocoRosie is a musical group formed in 2003 by sisters Bianca "Coco" and Sierra "Rosie" Casady. The sisters were born and raised in the United States, but formed the band in Paris after meeting for the first time in years...
, Animal Collective
Animal Collective
Animal Collective is an experimental psychedelic band originally from Baltimore, Maryland, currently based in New York City. Animal Collective consists of Avey Tare , Panda Bear , Deakin , and Geologist...
, and Six Organs of Admittance
Six Organs of Admittance
Six Organs of Admittance is the primary musical project of guitarist Ben Chasny. Chasny's music is largely guitar-based and is often considered new folk, however it includes obvious influences, marked by the use of drones, chimes, and eclectic percussive elements...
, released the compilation The Golden Apples of the Sun
The Golden Apples of the Sun (album)
The Golden Apples of the Sun is a limited edition compilation of contemporary folk music curated by musician Devendra Banhart for the art magazine Arthur Magazine. The title comes from a Ray Bradbury short story...
, and curated the ArthurFest
ArthurFest
ArthurFest was a two day music festival curated by Arthur Magazine. The festival took place September 4 and 5, 2005 at the Barnsdall Art Park in Los Angeles, California...
(2005) and ArthurBall (2006), featuring a variety of artists from the movement.
Associated bands and artists
This list represents a small cross-section of many different types of music produced within the last 10 years.
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Comets on Fire Comets on Fire was an American noise rock band from Santa Cruz, California. The band was formed in 1999 by guitarist and vocalist Ethan Miller and longtime friend bassist Ben Flashman, who were seeking to create rhythmically and sonically intense music that paid no attention to categorizations.-... Davenport (band) Davenport was a musical collective from Madison, Wisconsin. The project was initiated by Clay Ruby in 2002. Their musical style, difficult to categorize, owes more to freeform jazz, psychedelic rock, and experimental avant-garde music than to traditional folk music, and may be loosely attributed... Alela Diane Alela Diane Menig is an American singer and songwriter living in Portland, Oregon.-Life and career:Alela Diane Menig, she grew up singing with her musician parents and performing in the school choir... Entrance (musician) The Entrance Band is a band started by Guy Blakeslee . Their style of music has been described as psychedelic rock or stoner rock.... Espers (band) Espers is a psych folk band from Philadelphia that is part of the emerging indie folk scene. They formed in 2002 as a trio of singer-songwriter Greg Weeks, Meg Baird and Brooke Sietinsons but later expanded to a sextet including Otto Hauser, Helena Espvall and Chris Smith... Faun Fables Faun Fables is a band from Oakland, California. Faun Fables is a concept and vehicle for Dawn McCarthy, who was inspired to write the original material while traveling after leaving the New York City music scene in 1997. Faun Fables also covers both 20th century compositions by other song writers... Josephine Foster Josephine Foster is an American modern folk and psychedelic rock singer-songwriter and musician from Colorado. As an adolescent she worked as a funeral and wedding singer, and aspired to become an opera singer... |
Fursaxa Fursaxa is a USA-based acid folk or freak folk project led by Tara Burke of Philadelphia. Her home-recordings feature acoustic guitar, simple Casio electronic keyboards, accordion, dulcimer and her heavily overdubbed vocals on a 4-track recorder.She has been making music since childhood... Adam Gnade Adam Gnade is a San Diego, California-born American musician and author currently living on a farm in rural Kansas. In his bio he defines his music as "talking-songs", which he describes as mixing the spoken vocals of talking blues songs with country music, Appalachian folk, noise, psychedelic... Grizzly Bear (band) Grizzly Bear is a Brooklyn-based indie rock band, composed of Edward Droste , Daniel Rossen , Chris Taylor and Christopher Bear . The band employs traditional and electronic instruments... Hala Strana Hala Strana is the name of a recording project of American musician Steven R. Smith. Smith began recording under the name in 2002 as an outlet which allowed him to explore the traditional music of Eastern Europe more fully than possible with his solo work... Jana Hunter Jana Hunter is a Baltimore-based songwriter and musician. She was born in Texas and is currently a member of Lower Dens.She is signed to Gnomonsong, a new record label run by Devendra Banhart and Vetiver's Andy Cabic... Hush Arbors Hush Arbors is the primary musical project of singer-songwriter/guitarist, Keith Wood. His music sees traditional folk merged with elements of country and psychedelic music. Along with releasing solo material he is also a touring member of Thurston Moore's band... Jewelled Antler Jewelled Antler is a musical collective created in 1999 by Loren Chasse and Glenn Donaldson as an extension of their work in the organic drone folk-noise group Thuja. The idea was to release handmade CD-R's of various solo and collaborative projects and one-off bands, encompassing drones, songs,... Bryyn Bryyn is an American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist based in Lausanne, Switzerland formerly known as Pinkle. His music has been described to be a new wave and independent folk pop intertwined with experimental and creative sounds. Bryyn is noted for self-recording and producing all... The Mountain Goats The Mountain Goats is an American indie rock band formed in Claremont, CA by singer-songwriter John Darnielle. For many years, the sole member of the Mountain Goats was Darnielle himself, despite the plural moniker.... |
MV&EE MV & EE is a Vermont-based group of musicians focused around Matt "MV" Valentine and his partner Erika "EE" Elder. Matt Valentine was in the neo-psychedelic group, The Tower Recordings and has also released music under his own name and the pseudonym, Matthew Dell... No-Neck Blues Band The No-Neck Blues Band, also known as NNCK, is a seven-member free-form improvisational musical collective from New York City. Formed in 1992, the original band was of eight members , and has practiced weekly in a space in Harlem since... Grant Olney Grant Olney Passmore is a singer/songwriter who has recorded on the Asian Man Records label. He is considered part of the New Weird America movement along with David Dondero, Devendra Banhart, Bright Eyes, and CocoRosie. He is half of the song-writing duo Olney Clark, whose first full-length album... Jack Rose (guitarist) Jack Rose was an American guitarist originally from Virginia and later based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Rose is best known for his solo acoustic guitar work. He was also a member of the noise/drone band Pelt.... Sunburned Hand of the Man Sunburned Hand of the Man are a band from Massachusetts that formed in 1997 from the remnants of the Boston psychedelic punk trio Shit Spangled Banner.... Town & Country (band) Town & Country was an American minimalist quartet based in Chicago.Members were:*Ben Vida: Guitar/Trumpet... Vetiver (band) Vetiver are an American folk band headed by songwriter Andy Cabic.- History :Cabic was a member of the Greensboro, North Carolina indie rock band The Raymond Brake who released some records on the now defunct Simple Machines label. He formed Vetiver after moving to San Francisco. The band... White Magic (band) White Magic is a psychedelic folk rock group based in Brooklyn, N.Y., led by singer/guitarist/pianist Mira Billotte.-History:White Magic's original lineup was Mira Billotte on vocals and piano, drummer/bassist Miggy Littleton and guitarist/drummer Andy Macleod... |