The two latest reissues to spin off from our acclaimed Imaginational Anthem Volume 8: The Private Press feature the solo guitar compositions of Russell Potter, recorded in the last waning days of the initial American Primitive explosion.

A then obsessed teenaged devotee of John Fahey, Robbie Basho, and Leo Kottke at a time when Punk and New Wave were ascendant, Potter harnessed a similar DIY ethos to his own ends by starting his own label & self-publishing his first record, 'A Stone's Throw', while a freshman enrolled at Goddard College in Vermont in 1979. Assembled at the legendary Boddie Records in Potter's hometown of Cleveland, Ohio, and sprinkled liberally with references to his heroes, from the initial record label name of Fonytone (which more than a little recalls Fahey's earliest record label, Fonotone), to the arcane song titles and references to obscure rags.

Even as he looks to his elders, Potter's debut release nimbly evinces a complete mastery of his form and is all the more remarkable for one of such tender years, as only the chutzpah of youth can account for such moves as successfully grafting one of your own composition to one of John Fahey's, as he does here. There's a very immediate, lovely, and real homespun quality to Potter's chiming twelve-string compositions that puts it in the realm of those classic records that seem to simply exist outside of time.

Shortly after 'A Stones Throw', Potter produced & released a 45rpm single by an Ohio bluegrass band featuring the cult singer songwriter Bob Frank performing a cover of Devo's 'Mongoloid', before moving on to his second (and sadly final) album the following year, 'Neither Here Nor There'. Following an independent study with a Goddard College ethnomusicologist, Potter's compositions and performance only deepened on his second release - the recording quality steps up a little but loses none of the immediacy, the playing gets more exuberantly virtuosic -but then more reflective too, particularly on the tunes that are influenced by the gorgeous traditional Irish slow airs. He's still tipping his hat to Fahey occasionally as well, this time with an audacious electric guitar setting of the classic "Dance of the Inhabitant of the Palace of King Philip XIV of Spain."

Though these albums landed at a time when American Primitive guitar music's 1960s & 1970s heyday was in the rear view mirror, they absolutely look ahead to the genre's eventual 21st Century resurrection, anticipating both in form & content many of the same concerns you find in the great contemporary work of the last two decades by Jack Rose, Glenn Jones, Daniel Bachman, et al., and as such provide about as fine a stepping stone between these two eras as you're likely to find.

A Stone's Throw

Heart Strings.
Produced by JAY NEBULA

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Heart Strings

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Break Waves

The second single from Sam Burton.
Featuring vocals by Kacey Johansing

Sam Burton is from Salt Lake City, now based in Los Angeles. After several years circulating homemade cassettes on labels like Chthonic and embraced by blogs like Cassette Gods, Sam has recorded his first proper debut album with producer Jarvis Taveniere (Purple Mountains, Allah Lahs, Real Estate). Due later in 2020, the LP will be preceded by two limited edition 45s. The second will be available on coloured vinyl exclusively for Record Store Day in the UK (June 20).

I Can Go With You

Nothing Touches Me

Album Out June 19th, 2020 !

Josh Kimbrough is a fingerstyle guitarist and composer from Chapel Hill, NC. For the last 15 years he’s been a core member of the NC collective, Trekky Records (Lost in the Trees, Phil Cook, Sylvan Esso). He learned to play by studying Freddie King instrumentals and Fernando Sor classical guitar exercises. Josh has teamed up with producer and bass player Jeff Crawford (The Dead Tongues, Big Star’s Third) for the first full length under his own name. Slither, Soar & Disappear is an intimate and immersive song cycle inspired by the natural world, fatherhood, and the joy of solitude. On it, small ensembles of double bass, flute, strings, mandolin, banjo, and drums adorn his nylon and steel string guitar work.

words about the record

Slither, Soar & Disappear is an instrumental, fingerstyle guitar record. It’s an ode to fatherhood and the restorative power of the natural world. 

The music came to me on my back deck, where I would go to find solitude while my son, Simon was sleeping. I found that the rustling of squirrels in the leaves, and the hooting of barred owls, among other sights and sounds, would bring me a sense of peace and belonging. I imagined myself and my guitar as part of the chorus of natural sounds. 


Fatherhood, I was finding, forces one to abandon parts of the self--a heavy proposition in a society that emphasizes individualism. Cultural critic, farmer, and novelist, Wendell Berry in his book A Native Hill muses, “In order to know the hill, it is necessary to slow the mind down to the hill’s pace.” This principle applied to me at the time as I was adapting to a new speed of life and striving to be present as a father. On the deck, as my mind slowed down to take in the chirps and wind gusts these songs began to blossom. 

The following musicians appear on the record: 

Casey Toll - bass (Jake Xerxes Fussell, Nathan Bowles Trio)

Jeff Crawford - bass (The Dead Tongues, Big Star’s Third)

Andrew Marlin - mandolin (Mandolin Orange)

Peter Lewis - drums (Skylar Gudasz, Loamlands)

Leah Gibson - cello (Bowerbirds)

Bobby Britt - fiddle (Town Mountain)

Wilson Greene - banjo (Mipso)

Rachel Kiel - flute

Slither, Soar & Disappear

Backyard Hawk

Imaginational Anthem Vol X : Overseas Edition available now !
Compiled by Marcus Obst (Dying for Bad Music)

Album available on all digital services, worldwide. 
Buy on bandcamp, get a beautiful pdf booklet with notes and pix :
https://tompkinssquare.bandcamp.com/album/imaginational-anthem-vol-x-overseas-edition

Playing music on a wooden box that is strung with guts or metal wires is an age-old tradition across all cultures in the world. In the Western world, the guitar became a symbol for serenading an adored one, to cure homesickness, conserve stories, or go against the establishment.

Especially for American culture the guitar is an important icon and being pictured with a guitar shaped our understanding of pop culture....

For more, visit the Tompkins Square bandcamp page :
https://tompkinssquare.bandcamp.com/album/imaginational-anthem-vol-x-overseas-edition

Imaginational Anthem Vol. X : Overseas Edition

Jonas Meersmans - The Turnaround

'Kissing Rosy in the Rain' available on Tompkins Square Oct 16th.

Mason Lindahl is a guitarist and composer originally from Northern California residing in New York City. Growing up in folk and country music, originally learning guitar from his father at a young age.

'Kissing Rosy in the Rain' was recorded with long time friends Jay Pellici (Dilute, 31 Knots, Natural Dreamers) and Robby Moncrieff ... and a bit in Brooklyn with Ben Greenberg (Uniform/ Hubble).

All songs written Mason Lindahl 
Additional arrangement 
Robby Moncrieff  Tracks 1,2,3,4,6,8
 
Nylon string guitar: Mason Lindahl 
Organ and electronic piano: Robby Moncrieff 
Electric bass on deep wish: Thommy Minnick 
 
 Tracks 1,2,3,4,6,8
Recording Engineer Jay Pellicci 
Produced by Robby Moncrieff 
New and improved, Oakland ca 
 
Tracks 5,7,9
Recording engineer Ben Greenberg 
Figure 8 , Brooklyn NY 
 
Cover Photo: Sean Stout

Sky breaking, Couds Falling by Mason Lindahl

Rope Tricking

Christmas EP 'Yule Chime' available on every digital platform, worldwide.

Josh Kimbrough is a guitarist and composer from Chapel Hill, NC. His 2020 Tompkins Square debut, Slither, Soar & Disappear, has been called “Utterly Moving” by Record Crates United, and “A Triumph” by Folk Radio UK. It’s received glowing reviews from MOJO, UNCUT, and Aquarium Drunkard.

With Yule Chime, Kimbrough offers five Christmas guitar soli in time for the holiday season. Two original compositions bookend three traditional tunes. “Sledding Down Spring Valley Hill” kicks the album off in a tuning borrowed from Michael Hedges’ “Admiral Rickover's Dream”. Spring Valley Hill was a favorite sledding spot from Kimbrough’s youth. “The hill was steep--if you made it to the bottom without tipping over, you could jump the curb and glide down into an open field.” The three traditional songs that follow are ones that Kimbrough’s dad would play on piano for the family when he was growing up. “Once in Royal David’s City” is a cross-continental duet with Johan Eriksson (Sweden) playing dobro and pedal steel. “Poor Little Jesus” is a minor-key affair. This tune is a spiritual that dates back to the 1800s. It’s published in the Episcopal Hymnal, which is where Kimbrough’s dad learned it. The album closes with “Out Getting Firewood”, an evocation of Christmases spent in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia--where Kimbrough’s in-laws live. They heat their house exclusively with a wood stove in the winter time. This calls for routine trips to the wood pile. These songs were recorded over three days at Jeff Crawford’s Arbor Ridge Studios--just three miles from Kimbrough’s house in Chatham County, NC. Spending time in the studio is a special privilege in 2020--these five recordings represent a joyful release of pent-up energy. There’s room on the sled, there’s a log on the fire--catch the hopeful spirit and ring in your holiday season with Yule Chime.

Josh Kimbrough - guitars
Johan Eriksson - pedal steel and dobro on track 2
Jeff Crawford - organ on track 4

Recorded and mixed by Jeff Crawford at Arbor Ridge Studios, Nov 9th-12th.
Mastered by Andrew Weathers
Artwork by Darryl Norsen

Yule Chime

Poor Little Jesus

BOBBY LEE - Origin Myths - Out March 5th digital. LP out May 7.
PRE-ORDER LP : http://www.tompkinssquare.com/bobbylee.html

Bobby Lee trades in a wide screen brand of cosmic country-folk, full of space and pawn shop guitars. There are touches of JJ Cale's analogue Americana, the swampy groove of Tony Joe White and Richard Thompson's sinewy, modal guitar work. Amps hum in the warm afternoon sun, kids and dogs snooze on the grass and broken drum machines keep time with the universe…Open sky/scorched earth improvisations recorded to four track tape during the rare moments of solitude afforded by lockdown and early fatherhood. Bobby Lee’s “worn-denim psych-country” remains, but the ancestral spirits of Ashra, Popol Vuh and Terry Riley are present here too. Time and technological limitations have been embraced. A song dreamt up, tracked and mixed in an afternoon, never to be tampered with again. Imperfections allowed to stand; knowing that nothing is ever truly finished. The Bob Ross school of philosophy. 

“Overdriven drum-machine low slung choogle" - MOJO

“The further Bobby unmoors himself from songs and heads towards long-form abstraction, the more engrossing it becomes” - UNCUT

Sky breaking, Couds Falling by Mason Lindahl

TompkinsSquare

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