Keeping it WARM: part 1: trippy troubadours
Oddfinds #3.1
Oddfinds #3.1
Oddfinds is an occasional series about the records, songs, or even shops, labels and other pieces of the musical ecology that are literally ‘odd finds’. Pieces of vinyl, CDs or online bits of music hanging around in digital corners. From my point of view, an oddfind is good - very good.
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Keeping it WARM
This is the first oddfinds post on the Warm Agency. The second will be posted next week.
These days, virtual crate-digging has largely replaced physical trawling through record bins for many people – me included. There are still amazing record shops (and new ones too – see my previous post on #RSD2024), but independent artists and labels have also found new ways of reaching listeners in the. past decade or so. Bandcamp, Soundcloud – even F**ebook – throw up new and interesting oddfinds. Online versions of traditional ‘high street’ record stores too.
One of these labels is Warm Agency – “an independent booking agency, record label and online record shop…” based in Poole in Dorset, UK. They put their money where their mouths are, supporting and publishing an interesting and varied roster of artists, as well as specialising in compilations and re-issues through its label, RE:WARM. It was one of those compilations that drew me in, and this is one of the oddfinds in this two-part post.
WARM is geeky, eclectic and committed to bringing gems to light that have been overlooked and/or forgotten. You can find Warm on Bandcamp, but they also have their own online shop (RS:WARM). I like it because has a the feel of an old-fashioned couple of record bins you might have found in the corner of a backstreet shop somewhere. You know, where all the records have those plastic sleeves on them, and the shop sells lots of other stuff too (dog-eared books, beanie hats, manga comics, second-hand clothes that smell of weed, boogie boards, pendants and crystals). In reality, their online shop carries old UK soul classics, books, T shirts, 12'' re-releases and brand new albums from artists on the WARM roster. And these oddfind compilations too, full of ‘new to you’ music. What more could you want?
oddfinds #3.1 FOLK FUNK - Trippy Troubadours Volume One
With a lot of oddfinds, there are stories to be told and connections to be found and followed, together with intriguing people who pop up and who lead you us down yet another rabbit hole. One of these people is Paul Hillery. Paul (or pH as he is also know) has an intriguing music blog – and he is much more of a music geek than me.1
Paul searches, compiles, curates, creates, deejays and remixes. His work is utterly driven by love for the music he’s finding and, with labels like WARM, committing to disc and vinyl. As the blurb for this wonderful compilation says: “Paul is a hugely respected collector of private press obscurities, lost loner folk, strange musical fauna and intricately played floral powered wonders.” I’d like to talk with him one day, but until I do, this paean to his meticulous labour of love will have to suffice.2
FOLK FUNK - Trippy Troubadours Volume One is, as the title suggests, the first of two (so far) compilations of what loosely comes under the heading of folk-funk. But, as Paul himself points out in the sleeve notes to the first volume, the genre thing is “tricky to put a finger on …I added ‘& Trippy Troubadours’ to give me a little wiggle room from the genre police”.
Much of the music on this compilation comes from the crossover space of folk, soul and funk. Many of the tracks date from the seventies and early eighties, but there are more contemporary recordings too – like the beautiful, politically charged Cherry Blossom Oak3 by Christian Besa Wright:
More typical might be the deep funk-folk crossovers from the 1970’s. It’s always hard to pick out a representative track from a compilation as solidly awesome as this, but Kip Carmen’s brilliant 1973 recording ‘That’s Enough For Me” – the final song on the album – demonstrates the breadth and depth of this curation.
Every piece on the album has a story – meticulously chronicled by Paul Hillery on the sleeve notes. The level of detail is astonishing and gives real context to these old music stories and ecologies. Exemplifying this is an 11 minute live recording of Peter Wale’s One Quiet Sultry Sunday. The track begins with a hypnotic guitar line and Wale starts a spoken word riff, and I feel as if I am in the room with him and audience; transported back to the intimate 1971 concert he performed just before going travelling on a yacht from Cape Town to Rio de Janeiro. The song has an amazing flute solo too – and I do like a flute solo…
A number of these songs and instrumental have never been released before – or appear on the album in new versions. It’s definitely a treasure trove of oddfinds… 4
In the second part of this Keeping WARM oddfinds piece, I’ll be listening to HOME Volume One, a COVID lockdown compilation curated by WARM boss Ali Gillett, with nature sound recordings by Gary Moore and tracks by a range of folk and electronic artists.
Notes
This video, copied here with his permission, is from his blog – https://paulhillery.co.uk/blog – it proves his musical geekiness… and is also a familiar experience for those of us whose music collections have surpassed the understanding of our loved ones - regardless of age. Paul tells me that the video is fifteen years old… and I bet he hasn’t stopped buying records…
Paul also hosts an even more comprehensive YouTube channel entitled Folk Funk & Trippy Troubadours with tracks for Volume 1 and Volume 2 of the WARM compilations AND his equally amazing 'Children Of The Sun' Trilogy of compilations from BBE records. Be careful; you could spend a LOT of time there!! https://youtube.com/@FolkFunkTrippyTroubadours?si=Q2II3lsC7FVQcvz5
From the sleeve notes: “ ‘Cherry Blossom Oak’ was written and recorded in 2017 as an assignment for an Asian-American History course… Initially inspired by an article concerning the experience of mixed-race contestants in Japanese ‘Cherry Blossom’ beauty pageants the song explores a complicated dynamic of cultural assimilation experienced by second-generation immigrants”.
Folk Funk & Trippy Troubadours Volume Two is also available from RE:WARM. You can find it at https://warmagency.com/collections/re-warm/products/re-warm-016-folk-funk-trippy-troubadours-vol-2-compiled-by-paul-hillery