Two Words, One Answer.
pell-mell
 Star City $9.98 One of those meekly strong, Tortoise-esque strains that did a whole lot of consistently good but not very much stand-out great.  Johnny, Cock Thy Beaver: Popular Music-Making in 17th-Century England $18.98 'Johnny, cock thy Beaver' by The Dufay Collective is a combination of popular music from both the masses and the gentry with pretensions to musical sophistication. In other words, this is the stuff which made up the top 40 hit parade in the 17th century. One thing which immediately strikes me is that there is nothing here which we hear from old English folk music performers. This leads me to believe that the contention that the folk music of today was the popular music of way back then is quite false. This is NOT the sort of thing which got Fairport Convention or The Pentangle off the ground. It is a bit light for the scholarly among us, but if your musical tastes are omniverous, this is a tasty bite.  1982: It Was a Live Cassette $14.98 Energetic performance of quirky grooves from the unusual group in early form is a giddy punk intellectual's best night out. The songs are smart, though in a primitive way, and do have their limitations, functioning much as curious exercise over involved piece, but providing stimulate nonetheless. |
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