Autumnal Avant-Folk

An Evening of Autumnal Avant-Folk

Monday, September 26, 7:30 p.m.
• Webster’s Bookstore Café •
128 S. Allen St., State College

One of the most significant developments on the underground music scene over the past few years has been the rise of a new strain of folk music that bridges several generations of tradition and innovation. Drawing on older time-honored styles as well as 1960s and 70s folk-rock and psychedelia, filtered through a post-punk DIY attitude, these artists care less about purism and genre boundaries than they do about creativity and innovation, injecting new vitality into a form in danger of slipping into senescence. We are pleased to present three of the most inspired and unique musicians in the style for a special evening of avant-folk in the intimate setting of Webster’s Bookstore Café.

• ~ • • ~ • • ~ •

Timothy, Revelator is the solo musical identity of Tim Renner, who has been at the forefront of the underground folk movement for over a decade with his groups Stone Breath, The Spectral Light and Moonshine Firefly Snakeoil Jamboree, Moth Masque, Mourning Cloak, and others. His music brings together folk tradition and dark psychedelic experimentalism, and has been referred to as “acid-folk”, “Appalachian gothic”, “wyrd-folk”, and other unwieldy terms, with influences ranging from the Incredible String Band and Syd Barrett to Dock Boggs and old-timey mountain music. From his home in Glenville, PA, Renner also runs sister record labels Dark Holler and Hand/Eye, two key sources for outsider folk and experimental sounds.

Forgotten Works is the solo folk project of Erik Wivinus, best-known as space-rock guitarist with Minneapolis groups Salamander and Skye Klad. While echoes of their epic psychedelic sounds can be heard in the music of Forgotten Works, these mostly acoustic sounds are closer in spirit to his work with the neo-pagan trance-folk duo Gentle Tasaday—long form, raga-tinged mystical improvisations on 6- and 12-string guitars, with occasional forays into vocal territory and plenty of darkly hypnotic atmosphere.

Paul Metzger, once known chiefly as guitarist with the highly-regarded Minneapolis avant-rock group TVBC, heads even further into uncharted territory with his recent solo work. His modifications to banjos and guitars (extra strings and additional parts turning them into something closer to folk-art sitars) are unique enough on their own, but it is his virtuosic technique on the instruments that is truly unprecedented. Echoes of raga, middle- and far-east melodies, gypsy music and the American backwoods all play a part in his extended improvisations, in which rhythm is implied more than imposed, and time seems to take on new dimensions.

~ • • ~

The event is free and open to the public; a $3 donation is requested to help cover expenses.
For more information contact Kevin Moist at kmm104 [AT] psu.edu or 861-0615.