New American Weird
September 10, 2008 by Andrew Booth
Filed under Anablog
A while back I wrote an article about Americana music, naive and weirdly formatted as it was. Of course I’m older and a bit wider read nower days, and realise, of course, that the music I was describing in such glowing terms was in fact not Americana, but a subsection of it called New America Weird. Glad to clear that up for you.
New American Weird, as an idea, has been fashioned by Devendra Banhart, amongst others, with his compilation Golden Apples of the Sun for Arthur Magazine. Its a fantastic, then super rare – now re-issued compilation, featuring the likes of Joanna Newsom, Josephine Foster, Iron & Wine and Scout Niblett. You can listen to it over on Arthur Magazine’s website.
ps Banhart has a new side project, as spotted over on Pitchfork.
I remember visiting Amoeba Records in San Francisco a couple of years ago. The store is the second largest indie record shop after their place in LA, and even they didn’t have this. Awesomeness. For the record, I think Devendra and Joanna Newsome both prefer the term ‘Naturalismo’ for their particular brand of freak folk, which of course sounds appropriately nutso.