‘A psychoacoustic odyssey through the American South, influenced as much by Dock Boggs as by Luc Ferrari. This isn’t ‘avant-folk’ as per, but more expansive avant-garde compositions using components of traditional music as tools for storytelling. There are banjos, but they bounce around the stereo field in hypnotic patterns; there are autoharps, but they’re bowed, left detuned by time and humidity, and augmented with sounds of screeching cicadas.
‘Check out the haunted, ambient interpretation of the murder ballad Omie Wise, featuring fourteen different versions of the song time-stretched and overlaid with pedal steel by Tongue Depressor’s Henry Birdsey. It’s a wild listen!’

Wonderful, half-enraptured, half-stoned, full-blown re-imagination of vintage country soul sublimity. (He likes Washington Phillips; you can hear Curtis.) Five star reviews everywhere.

The Nordan Project, combining Swedish folk and jazz improvisation. With Palle Danielsson on bass, from various Charles Lloyd, Keth Jarrett and Jan Garbarek lineups.

Mostly this is slow, stricken Lucinda, as moving and compelling as she gets, grieving for her mum and furious with an ex. Worth putting up with the Patti Smith impressions.

With Big Joe Williams, Robert McCoy, Henry Townsend, Yank Rachell and co.

The 1984 Hollywood novel, captivatingly read by Will Oldham. (Wurlitzer wrote the Two-Lane Blacktop screenplay for Monte Hellman, and Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid for Peckinpah, amongst other illustrious works.)

1950s recordings by Bob Copper and Peter Kennedy — selected and presented by Shirley Collins in ways weighted towards the social lives and values of the performers.

Wonderful early recordings, some of his very best, from a small club, six yards by twelve, in 1973.

His debut LP, a little over-produced by Jack Clement for Poppy in 1965; including precious first goes at songs like Tecumseh Valley and Waiting ‘Round to Die.
‘It seems a lot of people in Nashville write by phrase, or by the line. As opposed to writing by the word. A lot of my best songs are where every single word is where it’s supposed to be… For the Sake of the Song was written by the word. I once sat down and wrote out the rhyme scheme for that song, and it was amazing. Pretty complex. But it didn’t seem that complex when I was writing it.’

Previously unreleased, elemental drafts of some his greatest songs (plus a couple which never saw the light of day). Startlingly intimate and beautiful. Hotly recommended.