One of the most singular, stubborn and inscrutable bands of the post-punk/hardcore/indie 1980s, the Sun City Girls exploded out of the Phoenix hardcore punk scene but took a […]
Folk
One of our autumnal favorites from folk supergroup The Pentangle, Basket of Light is a hybrid of blues, folk, jazz, classical and something unnameable that could only be […]
That Chan Marshall’s career managed to survive the 1990s intact is something of a miracle. Becoming increasingly visible after her Matador Records debut What Would the Community Think? […]
Crosby, Stills & Nash’s debut album is a Laurel Canyon classic that “ushered in the early ’70s singer-songwriter boom. Yes, this was a group, but it was one […]
Sun Arcs is a gorgeous new collection of acoustic folk and jazz from Copenhagen-based multi-instrumentalist Jason Dungan aka Blue Lake. Inspired by Dungan’s summers spent in a cabin […]
On her latest full-length album Ulaan on Squama Recordings, Enji continues her seemingly exponential growth as she steps into a bandleader position, bringing together an international quintet featuring […]
Spring is the lone album by the 1970s pop music duo American Spring made up of sisters Diane Rovell and Marilyn Rovell Wilson, who was married to Brian […]
For the last 15 years, Baba Stlitz has primarily been known as an electronic artist, but with his 2022 tape release Baba Stiltz in LA, he turned to the […]
Split into two halves, John Fahey’s Requia kicks off with three gorgeous acoustic “requiems” for bluesmen that inspired the Washington, D.C. born guitarist. Side 2 is an entirely […]
Pioneering Canadian Cree musician and social activist Buffy Sainte-Marie presents her most ambitious work yet on her sixth studio album Illuminations. The first-ever album with vocals processed through a […]
Santa Cruz’s Smiling C and celebrated selector Charles Balsey (curator of the excellent Club Meduse comps) team up for America Dream Reserve, an hour-long Casio-powered journey through lo-fi Americana, […]
Inside Out has been described by John Martyn as “everything I ever wanted to do in music… it’s my inside coming out.” More experimental and free-form than his […]
Bristol multi-instrumentalist, producer and nature freak Will Yates aka memotone arrives on the always excellent NYC-based label Impatience with a collection of singular balearic ambient, left-field grooves, and […]
Selected by Discotchari: “A staple among both Armenian and jazz collectors, this album reflects the musical magic brewing at the turn of the decade. It is the product […]
Northern Song is the first of many classic ECM albums from Minneapolis based guitarist Steve Tibbetts and percussionist Marc Anderson. Recorded over the course of three days in […]
Featured in El Marchante’s Experimental Sounds of Latin America. “The Triumph of Nicaragua is expressed in the explosion of joy and energy which dances through the music being […]
An ECM classic from the great Brazilian composer, guitarist and pianist Egberto Gismonti, Sol do Meio Dia is Portuguese for “Noon Sun.” From Egberto Gismonti: “The music on […]
HTRK’s Jonnine Standish meets Laurent Richard aka DJ Sundae’s Idle Press imprint for a match made somewhere between hell and heaven. Maritz, named after Standish’s mother, is a collection […]
Originally released on CD-only in 1994 and recently reissued by Osaka’s EM Records, Purple Garden is a hidden gem featuring futuristic ambient-Mandarin pop from Shanghai-born vocalist Xiao Yun […]
The first track on the Chicago bassist and bandleader Joshua Abrams-led Natural Information Society big band opens with rhythm: Abrams thrumming his double-bass strings while percussionists Hamid Drake […]
Psychedelic downtempo tribal folk from the iconic label/party collective “Voodoohop” based in São Paulo, Brazil. Combining traditional instruments with modern production influenced by dance music scenes from the […]
A collection of fragile folk songs from UK singer-songwriter Joanne Robertson’s archive of unreleased solo recordings. Similar to ‘Painting Stupid Girls’ (released 2020 via Dean Blunt’s World Music […]
Kevin McCormick’s unreleased bedroom studio tape material (1982-1984). Following the release of Light Patterns in 1982, Kevin recorded a series of songs onto tape that explored the sonic […]
Beyond the Willow Tree traces the early recordings of singer, songwriter, and cardiologist Cleveland Francis. During a time when the music industry was very much segregated (“If you […]
Time is Away is the London-based DJ/musical storyteller/artist duo Jack Rollo and Elaine Tierney. Their first officially licensed compilation, Ballads is a divinely curated collection of deeply heartfelt songs and devotional […]
“Tim had grown up in Oregon, been a marine, come to New York City to learn acting but hadn’t like the school and quit it, hung around Greenwich […]
Tropical Dandy is the first album from the great Haruomi Hosono’s “Crown Years” where he explored tropical jazz fusion, soft rock, exotica, and lounge music with his band […]
A favorite of our good friend Justin Gage of Aquarium Drunkard, Cycles is the second solo album by cellist David Darling on Manfred Eicher’s seminal ECM Records. With […]
Compiled by Audika Records, Love is Overtaking Me collects previously unreleased folk, pop, and country demos and home recordings from the archives of the late great American cellist, […]
Our friends from Forager Records continue their streak of impeccably curated compilations with Sky Dust Drifter “a cosmic medley of sun-soaked AOR, psychedelic folk, and soft rock.” Collected […]
Compiled by Stroom Records’ Ziggy Devriendt, Tropisch Verlangen, which translates to “Tropical Desire,” is a collection of handcrafted analogue electronic compositions by Belgian musician Cybe aka Siebe Baarda. […]
Featured in the “Ethnic” section of Chee Shimizu’s Obscure Sound disc guide, Solar Wind is the lone release from short-lived ’80s Japanese fusion band Om. Apparently inspired by […]
An outlet for emerging local acts in Hawaii, KKUA’s four volume Home Grown series launched and propelled the careers of acts like Nohelani Cypriano, Cecilio & Kapono, Olomana, […]
An obscure and quite underrated ’80s electronic folk album, Karácsonyi Magyar Népdalok (Hungarian Christmas Folk Songs) might not be the most appealing title tag, but trust us, this […]
The debut album by sisters Maggie, Terre and Suzzy Roche from Park Ridge, New Jersey is a cult classic folk rock album produced by King Crimson’s Robert Fripp. […]
Guitarists Kevin McCormick and David Horridge collaborated on this wordless, dream-like album back in 1982, using only guitars and the occasional fretless bass to express themselves. The obvious […]
One of the best kept secrets of the ’60s folk scene, singer-songwriter Fred Neil Never was never quite comfortable with the music industry and would eventually walk away […]
Sandy Bull’s cult classic debut album Fantasias For Guitar And Banjo opens with the 22-minute long epic “Blend,” which some consider one of the greatest acoustic guitar tracks […]
Clarissa Connelly’s The Voyager is a whimsical collection of post-new age compositions that invoke a world of folklore and magical realism. Employing an experimental approach to traditional pop, featuring layered […]
“The music on this record is my attempt to explore and further the American acoustic guitar. I have four sources of the music ideas presented here: Bulgarian music […]
You can’t go wrong with an album cover featuring a fluffy cute dog pasted onto Superman’s body… A legend in the Japanese rock scene, Katoh launched his career […]
Terry Cox, Bert Jansch, Jacqui McShee, John Renbourn and Danny Thompson come together to form folk “supergroup” The Pentangle. Their 1968 groundbreaking debut album combines the folk, jazz, […]
From the liner notes: “Like much Italian experimental music from that magical decade of the 80s this is not your dad’s fourth world music, with all of its […]
Born into New Orleans blues and raised on Cambridge folk, Chris “Smither is an American original – a product of the musical melting pot and one of the […]
If you’re a follower of Dean Blunt, you may have heard Joanne Robertson’s quietly affecting vocals on The Redeemer, Zushi, or 2017’s collaborative effort Wahalla. The Glasgow-based singer […]
We’re big fans of Merope’s 2021 album Salos on Stroom so naturally we checked out the rest of the Lithuanian chamber group’s releases. Naktės are songs “inspired by the […]
Psych folk cult hero Linda Perhacs has had an interesting career, to say the least. After releasing her debut Parallelograms in 1970, Perhacs would become a full-time dental […]
One of the unsung heroes of the Laurel Canyon scene, Laura Allan has appeared on albums by Bette Midler, Bonnie Raitt, Eric Carmen, Crosby-Nash, as well as Crosby’s […]
From the liner notes of The Elusive Bob Lind: “Bob Lind is one of the young poets who have changed the sound and the meaning of America’s popular […]
Hukwe Zawose was the most internationally recognized musician from Tanzania’s Gogo ethnic group (pastoral nomads native to the deserts of Dodoma region), and this flawlessly recorded release captures […]
Bruce Springsteen’s sixth studio album Nebraska is a DIY loner classic released long before the term “bedroom producer” was a thing. The album was recorded with the assistance […]
The debut solo album from Asha Bhosle, the legendary Bollywood playback singer whose work spans film, pop, traditional Indian classical music, and folk songs. “Playback” singers worked behind-the-scenes […]
One of the most obscure albums to make the Billboard Top 200, Karen Beth’s The Joys of Life is an Acid Archives favorite featuring a gorgeous voice that […]
One of the first albums by a female artist to have sold more than 10 million copies worldwide, Tracy Chapman’s self-titled debut is an essential listen with humble […]
Fans of Vangelis’ epic soundtrack compositions may be surprised to learn that the Greek synth god’s first true solo effort actually sits in a more folk, psych, progressive […]
Undoubtedly the best of the three H.P. Lovecraft albums released in the late 60s / early 70s, H.P. Lovecraft II is a cosmic, West Coast mushroom trip that […]
North Marine Drive is the 1983 debut by Londoner Ben Watt before he joined forces with Marine Girls’ Tracey Thorn to create the mainstream 90s UK indie duo […]
After finding success in composing hits for other artists in the early 60’s (such as the Monkees’ “Pleasant Valley Sunday”, Aretha Franklin’s “(You Make Me Feel Like a) […]
The result of over a decade of comprehensive research on the pre-Columbian instrumentation of Mesoamerica, Ipan In Xiktli Metztli is Mexican multi-instrumentalist Luis Pérez’s debut album and magnum […]
Kathy Smith began as a fixture around the Los Angeles hippie and folk scene of the 60’s and 70’s, playing regularly at venues such as Paradox, the Troubador, […]
You may have already heard Brazilian singer Maria Rita through Music from Memory’s excellent Outro Tempo compilations. Still, Glasgow DJ Optimo and Sao Paulo’s Selvagem took the extra […]
Singer Fairuz is often regarded as “the Soul of Lebanon” and, in collaboration with the famed Rahbani brothers, created the modern Lebanese musical tradition. Post-colonial Lebanon in the […]
Very rarely does a compilation come along that’s as memorable and impressionable as Julien Dechery & DJ Sundae’s mixtape masterpiece Sky Girl. Compiled by the French selectors in […]
Few records in our collection could instantly silence the room at In Sheep’s Clothing quite like Emmanuelle Parrenin’s Maison Rose. Recorded in 1977 with the golden era of folk […]
Famously deleted from the catalogue of Asylum Records, with David Geffen pointedly trying to erase it from history, No Other is the lost and recently found masterpiece by […]
The Road to Ruin marks a pivotal stepping stone in the multi-faceted career of our patron saint John Martyn. Not only was it the last collaboration with his […]
A brilliant, memorable debut album by Sessa, a Brazilian Sephardic Jew from São Paulo, known for his work with Yonatan Gat as well as his psych/rock/funk band Garotas […]
An obscure jazz-rock holy grail from Sweden that touches on elements of pastoral folk as well as progressive rock, but ultimately sounds quite unlike any of the aforementioned […]
If you’re familiar with Jessica Pratt’s first two records, her third album, Quiet Sign, isn’t a tremendous departure, per se. But while the first two albums are bedroom […]
Brazilian drummer & percussionist Airto Moreira’s second solo LP Seeds On The Ground – The Natural Sounds Of Airto is a “world music” masterpiece that blends a variety […]
Harumi’s self-titled debut and sole release is one of those quintessentials as far as rare records go. It checks literally all the boxes necessary for what you’d expect […]
Bip Redon, Dominique Lentin, his sister Isabelle Lentin (of Virgule IV), and a few other unknown musicians make up the mysterious L’Empire des Sons. Not much is known […]
A collection must-have, this is the debut album by English folk singer-songwriter Vashti Bunyan. Like so many albums in our collection and amazing albums in general, this once […]
A record that we’d instantly pick out of the stacks based on cover alone, Paul Parrish’s The Forest of My Mind is a wonderful trip through mellow, psychedelic […]
It’s hard to pin down where to start with an artist that suffered such an incredibly turbulent life and at the same time, composed – on par with […]
A heartbreakingly intimate and rare private press record featuring American folk singer Kath Bloom accompanied by experimental musician Loren “Mazzacane” Connors. The record was originally issued in limited […]
A cult classic originally released as a private pressing in 1975 that became a costly collector’s item over the years, and is now available to the masses thanks […]
Düsseldorf-based DJ, producer, and Salon Des Amateurs resident Jan Schulte, aka Wolf Müller or Bufiman, pulled together this excellent concept album featuring his personal favorite “tropical drum” music […]
L.A. Turnaround was recorded a year after the dissolution of Bert Jansch’s group Pentangle, and saw the artist at a shifting point in his life and sound. The […]
If you have a road trip playlist, this album is a perfect addition. There are some songs that just make you want to hit the road and embrace […]
These Trails were the Hawaii based couple Margaret Morgan and Patrick Cockett. They never played a show and recorded their sole album in 1973. They were joined in […]
In 1969, four young, ambitious musicians—Haruomi Hosono (bass, vocals), Eiichi Ohtaki (guitars, vocals), Shigeru Suzuki (guitars) and Takashi Matsumoto (drums, lyrics)—found each other in Tokyo. They bonded over […]
Maria Monti, a talented Italian folk singer and actor who appeared in films by Bernardo Bertolucci and Sergio Leone, was backed by some incredible talent on her fifth […]
A big favorite here at ISC and to all who were present during the hundreds of times we played it at the bar. It’s one of our most […]
Go Hirano’s 2004 Corridor of Daylights sees a first time vinyl reissue thanks to Los Angeles label Black Editions. An outlier in Tokyo’s P.S.F. catalogue, a label known […]
A costly vinyl rarity until 2018 when Frederiksberg Records released a reissue, Goodbyes and Beginnings is a cult classic that sounds like the lovechild of 60’s folk and […]
A brilliant, slightly under the radar, new compilation of Urugauyan 80’s new wave pop, fusion, ambient folk and electronics, compiled by Spanish DJ and collector Javi Bayo. Similar […]
Picture the delight of meeting one of the most interesting people you’ve ever encountered, spending an impromptu afternoon with them over a long cup of coffee, picking their […]
Italian multi-instrumentalist and composer Pepe Maina describes his music as “ambient & prog rock music for dreams and illusion.” His debut album Il Canto Dell’Arpa e Del Flauto […]
Bobby Brown’s debut is a difficult to classify outsider opus that has become a sort of grail for rare psych collectors (it’s featured in the highly renowned Acid […]
Tim Buckley’s third album represented many important changes for the young songwriter. He stopped working with the lyricist of his first two albums and began to write his […]
Linda Cohen was a mostly self taught musician from Philadelphia who along with being a fixture in the local avant-garde music scene, worked diligently as a classical guitar […]
An In Sheep’s Clothing nighttime favorite, Barbara & Ernie’s only release is a complex combination of soul, folk rock, and late 60’s psychedelia. At first listen, it doesn’t […]
Cited as being an entry point to genres such as trip hop and ambient, Solid Air is undoubtedly John Martyn’s magnum opus. A true balance of dark and […]
The New Folk Sound Of Terry Callier released in 1966 on Prestige is exactly what its title suggests – a fresh take on American folk from the then-newcomer […]
A timeless masterpiece by Simon Jeffes’ Penguin Cafe Orchestra. PCO’s sound is difficult to categorize but perhaps best summed up as a mishmash of Jeffes’ eclectic influences – […]
