Jonathan Ward returns with a rich label-by-label history of early 78 rpm recordings from East Africa, uncovering the region’s first stars, sessions and sonic exports. The first lines […]
Folk
His long journey was restless, unscripted and unbound. Michael Hurley died last week, more than 60 years after his remarkable debut album for Folkways, First Songs, hit the world. […]
Contemporary Sounds from around the world… It’s a new year and of course Now Sounds continue to be a major focus for us here at In Sheep’s Clothing… […]
A collection of songs that don’t insist on being heard — but reward those who listen. Ichiko Aoba’s Luminescent Creatures doesn’t introduce a new world so much as trace the […]
Read an archival interview with The Roches shortly after they released Speak in 1989. The Roches’ cottage industry: making fun of pain. It reminds me of being a […]
Watch Chicago legend Terry Callier perform classics including “What Color is Love” and “Dancing Girl.” An eternal favorite here at In Sheep’s Clothing HQ, Terry Callier aka “Jazz’s […]
Our favorite new music from CS + Kreme, urika’s bedroom, Barry Archie Johnson, Fine, and more! New music continues to be a major focus for us here at […]
Fresh off her fourth album and a new collaboration with Baba Stiltz, Okay Kaya shares five favorites with us. Kaya Wilkins aka Okay Kaya is a Norwegian-American singer-songwriter […]
Recent mailbox arrivals from Juan Atkins & Moritz von Oswald, Sandy Bull, Vanishing Twin, and Ø. Although the basic machinations that occur behind the scenes of the In […]
Jessica Pratt’s ‘Here In The Pitch’ is out today! Listen to our pick for album of the year… The Los Angeles musician Jessica Pratt spent three years composing […]
Join us 2-5pm today at In Sheep’s Clothing NYC for a listening session dedicated to Efficient Space! Few labels command our attention as consistently and completely as Michael […]
An interview with Jacob Gorchov, whose label has released essential recordings by Yasuaki Shimizu, Woo, Mariah, and, most recently, Dorothy Carter. Over the past decade, the NYC-based label […]
It’s sweater season in much of the country. The leaves have turned. The mice are coming in from the cold. Fire in the fireplace. Coffee steaming. Melancholia. Blankets. […]
Time is Away’s latest compilation Searchlight Moonboom is out tomorrow via Efficient Space. Time is Away is the London-based DJ / historian / artist duo Jack Rollo and Elaine […]
Swedish-Filipino-American artist Baba Stiltz talks growing up, Vacaville, and his favorite things to do in Los Angeles. I first met Baba Stiltz back in 2016 when he was […]
The birds aren’t an affectation on the first record by Flaer. Their chirps score Preludes because the artist behind the project, the visual and musical artist Realf Heygate, […]
Join us for a dedicated listening session today 2-5pm at In Sheep’s Clothing NYC. The Chicago-born, Los Angeles based label Numero Group recently celebrated it’s 20th anniversary. Founded […]
Nostalgic world music from longtime Hosono collaborator Soichiro Suzuki a.k.a. World Standard. Today, we present one of the more understated but also consistently prolific artists from the extended […]
Ever the explorer, the British folk guitarist and songwriter carved a singular path, mixing jazz, dub and Echoplex textures. Few testimonials carry more weight than that of the […]
Munich-based Mongolian singer Enji Erkhem expands her sound with an international quintet. Following up on her amazing 2021 album Ursgal, Mongolian singer Enji Erkhem dives further inward on […]
‘Point of Entry’ is a serenely beautiful “personal folk” album perfect for the small hours. Years before the recent ambient music boom, Scottish musician Jonny Nash and his […]
Don’t miss Eli Winter this Sunday, June 25th at the Lodge Room in Highland Park. Over the past half-decade, the Houston-born, Chicago-based instrumental guitarist and writer Eli Winter […]
Rare grooves from Armenian selectors Zach Asdourian and Anaïs Gyulbudaghyan. Discotchari is a new project from LA-based record selectors Zach Asdourian and Anaïs Gyulbudaghyan. Named after a song […]
A sonic trip through Latin America with selections by El Marchante’s Osmar Romero. Last Friday on Cinco de Mayo, we presented a special listening session at the Japanese […]
Recent favorites from Chicago, Brooklyn, New Zealand, Basque, Amsterdam, Munich, Tokyo, and Sweden. Each week the global listening community gets bombarded with new releases, reissues and restocks. As […]
The LA-based ambient country-folk duo share recent favorites! Last month, the meditative Los Angeles instrumental outfit North Americans released Long Cool World, its fifth album overall and second […]
Minimalist ambient guitar music inspired by John Martyn, Erik Satie, Alice Coltrane, and Terry Riley. Santa Cruz-based label Smiling C returns with another lost gem from the archives. […]
Folklorist Derek Piotr shares recordings from his fieldwork archive. I made my first recording for the Derek Piotr Fieldwork Archive in March, 2020, and formally launched the project […]
The massive set features new music by Nick Cave, Blake Mills, Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, Seu Jorge, Sam Gendel, Sam Wilkes and dozens more Listen to the birds. That’s […]
Recent ISC favorites from Malmö, Kingston, Newcastle, London, and Los Angeles. Each week the global listening community gets bombarded with new releases, reissues and restocks. As music freaks […]
The definitive documentary of one of our favorite singer-songwriters is streaming until March 1st. Don’t miss! It’s hard to pin down where to start with an artist that […]
The mysterious true story of mid-century New York City singer songwriter Connie Converse… What happened to Connie Converse? When she vanished in 1974 at age 50, never to […]
Private press folk compiled by Perfect Lives’ Bruno Halper and Samuel Strang for the great NTS Radio. It’s no secret that the holidays can be hard. All these […]
Featuring hurdy-gurdy, harp, voice, and Bruno Menny’s arrangements. In 1977, when much of Western music culture was being upended by both the distorted aggression of the global punk […]
As the remarkable series approaches its 10th anniversary, a look at the musician-producer’s online project. In 2013, the musician and producer Jim O’Rourke started releasing a series of […]
Cosmic Americana recorded in a two room cottage in Los Osos, California. I can clearly remember the first time I heard Jon Iverson’s music. It was a quiet […]
Hallucinogenic journeys with the soon-to-be-disbanding Japanese psychedelic rock band. Earlier this year the great Japanese psych-prog-folk-jam-band Kikagaku Moyo released what they say will be their swan song. Called […]
Derek Piotr speaks to Death is Not the End label boss Luke Owen. For the fourth edition of our Heroes Series, I sat down with my current partner-in-crime […]
Efficient Space returns with another narrative driven comp, this time focusing on the regional backwaters of North America. If you were a regular at the ISC listening bar, […]
Phonographs, shellac discs, dusty 45’s, and archival videos curated and presented by Lance and April Ledbetter. For the past 20-plus years, the Georgia-based archival imprint Dust-to-Digital has been […]
A short documentary filmed in 1974 captures the Scottish folk guitarist in the studio. In the spring of 1974, Scottish guitarist Bert Jansch commenced recording sessions at label […]
Derek Piotr interviews Nathan Salsburg, musician and curator for the Alan Lomax Archive. I was overjoyed to invite Nathan Salsburg to participate in this series; Nathan and I […]
Baba Stiltz “In L.A.” is available now exclusively at In Sheep’s Clothing Records and Public Possession. Stockholm-based musician, singer, and producer Baba Stiltz is bringing it “home,” in […]
The Mermaid’s Purse captures a brilliant group of uncategorizable musical explorers. Core member Wall Matthews recalls their work. To best introduce the work of the Entourage Music and […]
Step into a world of North Carolina mountain singing with music archivist Derek Piotr. A series of recordings collected by Herbert Halpert for the Library of Congress in […]
Saigon rock & soul, Bollywood steel guitar, Khmer Folk and beyond… For the past 19 years the Seattle label Sublime Frequencies has been traveling the globe in search […]
The prolific head of Tzadik’s sublime work mixes jazz, Hebrew melodies and genre-bending beauty. In 1995, the New York composer, saxophonist and visionary John Zorn embarked on a […]
Archie Shepp, Jack J, Troth, Psychic TV, and more selects from In Sheep’s Clothing. Hello friends… It seems a dark cloud is forming just as a bit of […]
In celebration of Valentine’s Day, here are One Hundred Love Songs, a dive into Lesley Duncan’s seminal 1969 ballad and the endless covers that followed. If you’ve been […]
Recent favorites from Los Angeles, Melbourne, Munich, Dublin, and Algeria. Each week the global listening community gets bombarded with new releases, reissues and restocks. As music freaks who […]
Lovely footage of “American primitive” guitar master and Takoma records boss John Fahey. By 1969, guitarist John Fahey had released ten solo albums, founded the brilliant folk-blues label […]
Hauntingly beautiful “soulfolk” from the segregated south. Our friends at Forager Records continue their streak with yet another crucial archival project. Beyond the Willow Tree traces the early […]
Another installment of deep cuts, this time we take a look at an ISC patron saint, the enigmatic and genre-defying ~ John Martyn. Before what some consider […]
Softly psychedelic folk, soul, rare groove from the Hawaiian islands. Few labels are as committed to uncovering old and new sounds from their local scene than Honolulu-based Aloha […]
Obscure psychedelic folk, cosmic soul, and crooning AOR from the label behind Belong to the Wind. Los Angeles reissue upstart Forager Records got off to a strong start. […]
Thousand-year-old Mongolian music traditions meet folk and jazz on Squama Recordings’ latest. An undeniable magic inhabits the melodies and sounds of our youth. Lullabies, folk songs, the music of […]
How “Scratch” inspired John Martyn’s 1977 classic proto trip-hop recording ‘One World.’ Truly a “worlds collide” pairing, in 1976 UK folk musician and ISC patron saint John Martyn […]
Andy Beta interviews Brazilian singer/composer Priscilla Ermel. “Dear Mr. Eno, I would like you to know about our work, we work with tapes and sounds of Nature.” So […]
Shared listening selections from ISC staff including tracks from Music from Memory, Joe Zawinul, Selda Bağcan, and more! Hello friends! Excited to announce that we’re bringing back our […]
A look into the genius singer-songwriter who explored northern soul, “new folk sounds” and jazz, while always flying just below the radar. Terry Callier seemed destined to play […]
Folk, blues, minimalism and beyond. Selections from John Fahey’s seminal Americana label Takoma Records. It’s difficult not to think about Takoma Records without John Fahey’s name coming up. […]
Love songs from our friend Dakota Johnson. Dear Love Songs, You are my sweet companion. You break my heart. You make me fall in love with love. You […]
