smokebelch

Very very much enjoying Flying Over by Keijo – who is Finnish “free folk godfather” Keijo Virtanen. [I'm making sure that description's in quotes so nobody thinks I'm pretending to know anything more about this guy than I've read on two websites and a piece in The Wire a couple of months ago.]

One of the things that has disappointed me about a lot of the new folk underground stuff is that there’s a lot of ‘talking the talk’ about free jazz influences, and not that much ‘walking the walk.’ I think the only things I’ve heard before this that have joined those dots for me have been some of JOMF’s more clattering free-form pieces, but even then it’s more a sense of taking the spirit of someone like Pharoah Sanders rather than following in any blues-jazz continuum [obviously, why the hell should they. I'm not suggesting this stuff has to be rooted in that particular past, just that I've always thought it would be interesting.]

This is my favourite track from Flying Over …

Keijo – On The Edge

I think the take on blues can be compared to some of Albert Ayler’s blues recordings, though obviously acoustic guitar is going to take you in a very different direction to alto sax!

Digitalis Recordings, who’ve released Flying Over, have a good mail order deal on at the moment [they'll ship seven sale CDs to the UK for $50, which is incredibly friendly of them!]. You can also download for free a whole album of stuff [released simply as 'Keijo'] on the wonderful Finnish label Lal Lal Lal. I particularly like the first track, Wide Clouds, which heads into Fennesz territory.