The North Sea - Archaic Spines (2007)

Date Released: November 20, 2007
Origin: United States
Genre: Folk, Fusion, Experimental
Label: A Silent Place / IODA
Site: http://www.thenorthseamusic.com
Tracklist:

1. Splendor
2. Oh Velveteen
3. Silent Order Of The Shrouded Tombs
4. We Salute The Sandblasted Turrets
5. The Feather’d King, The Bluejay Queen
__________________________________________________
Brad Rose, the man behind the Digitalis and Foxglove labels returns with another solo album, on another beautifully presented ha limited edition imprint. Archaic Spines is an album that utilises only a bouzouki and a hint of vocals, spreading five celestial ragas over forty minutes of improvisation. Unlike the open tuned raga variations we've come to expect from the Takoma lineage, these pieces tend to be strummed with droning open strings as you'd find in classical sitar music. For all the nods toward Eastern harmonic patterns and improvisational structures Rose remains plugged into American folk music and psychedelia - with typically imaginative, fanciful song titles like 'Silent Order Of The Shrouded Tombs' and 'The Feather'd King, The Bluejay Queen' being suggestive of the trance-inducing mediaeval mysticism Rose is aiming for with his extended string workouts.

Review taken from: http://www.boomkat.com/item.cfm?id=69433
Download link: http://rapidshare.com/files/154684669/The_North_Sea_-_Archaic_Spines.rar.html

The North Sea - Exquisite Idols (2007)

Date Released: May 7, 2007

Origin: United States

Genre: Folk, Fusion, Experimental. Leftfield

Label: Type Records / Morr Music GBR

Site: http://www.thenorthseamusic.com
Tracklist:

1. Eternal Birds
2. Guiwenneth Of The Green Grass
3. We Conquered The Golden Age
4. Take It From Me Brother Moses
5. Cover Me With Knives
6. Children Of The Ashes
7. And The Solstice Disappeared
8. Feather-cloaked Silver Priestess
__________________________________________________
We'd certainly forgive you for thinking this whole 'Free Folk' business had reached saturation point, and frankly was starting to sound a bit 2005. Well, here's something to rejuvenate your interests - and ours for that matter. The North Sea is the recording moniker of Digitalis Industries supremo Brad Rose, who over the last few years has been bringing together some of the most consistently compelling artists in the field of avant-garde psychedelics, artists such as Hush Arbors, Tom & Christina Carter, Gown and James Blackshaw. It would be perfectly reasonable then to deduce that Rose must know a thing or two about this particular strain of underground music, and "Exquisite Idols" (Rose's first solo album proper) demonstrates this amply. This isn't the first time Rose has appeared on Type, many of you will remember his monumentally far-out collaboration with fellow folk-drone travellers Rameses III (on last year's "Night Of The Ankou"), but Exquisite Idols is an entirely different proposition which centres around experimental approaches to traditional song structures. The work of Keith Wood (aka the aforementioned Hush Arbors) would actually provide a close reference point for this album. Rose and Wood share a similar approach to skewing the traditional and re-spinning it as something eerily otherworldy. Take the 15th century styling of 'We Conquered The Golden Age' for example: it absorbs the archaic drone of Tara Burke's Fursaxa recordings and incorporates it into upbeat, half-murmured outsider-ish song craft. 'Take It From Me Brother Moses' condenses this idea even further -with two short minutes of banjo-led, goodtime Americana all recorded with a hazy, homespun quirkiness. "Exquisite Idols" is not entirely divorced from Type's customarily experimental mindset: 'Eternal Birds' is filled with creaking, elongated chords, clattering percussion and lo-fi field recordings, while 'Cover Me With Knives' sets gamelan-like percussion against swirling noise loops. Not only does "Exquisite Idols" weigh in as another fine addition to Type's increasingly broad catalogue, it's a reminder of what made this new wave of folk music sound 'free' in the first place. Magic.

Review taken from: http://www.boomkat.com/item.cfm?id=31904
Download link: http://rapidshare.com/files/154709212/The_North_Sea_-_Exquisite_Idols.rar.html