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INDIE FOLK
Standing at the S. Carey (indie folk project of former Bon Iver drummer [this fact is always mentioned] Sean Carey) show here at Carleton a week or so ago, I started to feel a strange, nameless anxiety. There was a decent crowd. The band, in a departure from their new record’s sound (albeit a very enjoyable departure) weren’t really playing folk music at all. A few people who had listened to the record before the show hadn’t dug that folk sound. I began to wonder about the state of one of my favorite genres (maybe even my favorite genre). Why the mild lack of interest? Four years ago this show could have been huge. Why the alteration in reception, and in sound? For my own part, why had I heard only a handful of truly great indie folk records during the past two or three years? To understand my present anxiety, however, I have to turn back and show you some things from the past. Indie folk, as part of the entire legacy of folk music in general, draws inspiration from many sources, but in terms of recent history it traces its most direct roots back to several lo-fi folk and folk-inspired projects from the 1990s and early 2000s, including artists like Neutral Milk Hotel, The Microphones, and The Mountain Goats. Such music caught the ears of a large number of eager listeners in the underground, listeners enamored with the use of some traditional folk elements amidst a dazzling display of heavy sounds and sonic experimentation, and drawn to the unabashedly emotional earnestness of the vocal delivery that was unconcerned with hitting every note perfectly, brazenly pulling at the heart strings even while its lyrics were clouded with confusing, vaguely pretentious symbolic imagery. These bands are a subject for another day, but it should be noted that the sound was, to say the least, refreshing. More than that it was a vision, and a foundation that could be built upon. Throughout the early-to-mid 2000s artists like Bright Eyes, The Decemberists, and Iron & Wine 26
Written by Lucas Rossi
The LIFE, TIMES, and DEMISE
began to put out independent, alternative folk music clearly operating with those 90s predecessors in mind, but also slowly transforming that sound’s rough edges and into something more immediately palatable, more concerned with clarity of sound, and more clearly identifiable as full-fledged, authentic folk music. They engaged in a re-embracing the tradition American folk music and Americana aesthetic that for decades had simmered underneath mainstream rock and pop culture, while also taking cues from elements of rock music, especially the complex pop construction of later Beatles albums and the exquisitely layered harmonies and arrangements of Pet Sounds-era Beach Boys. This was indie folk: Neo-Americana (even if it wasn’t coming from the USA), fine-tuned with an ear for the subtle, the delicate, and the careful, crystalline dynamics of pleasing yet complex new folk for the Internet age. Still, the process had just begun. It was unclear whether this form would be something ultimately worth writing home about.
