Psych folk

Psych folk or Psychedelic folk is a music genre which began through the blending of folk music and psychedelic music in the 1960s. It is generally acoustic or mixes acoustic instrumentation with other influences, usually something weird or atmospheric. Often chanting or world music influences are used.

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Early examples of psych folk bands were Syd Barrett, The Incredible String Band, and Tyrannosaurus Rex.

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It has continued to be performed up to the present day. Other notable psych folk artists are Robyn Hitchcock and Current 93.

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Since the 1990s, the Elephant Six Collective, with bands like Neutral Milk Hotel has been known to release psych folk records.

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The latest generation of psych folk artists in the early 2000s include Animal Collective, Faun Fables, Sun City Girls, Dame Darcy, The Arcade Fire, Kemialliset Yst?v?t and Devandra Banhart. (See New Weird America.)

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Other types of folk that incorporate world music, strange sounds and trippy lyrics include psych folk's scarier cousins, apocalyptic folk and pagan folk. While these genres are similar, the latter two appeal more to followers of gothic music, while psych folk is more favoured by hippies and psychedelic music followers in general. This relationship could be considered very analogous to the similar subject matter but different treatments of fantastical elements in fantasy fiction (psych folk) and horror fiction (apocalyptic folk).

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However, the two clearly overlap -- prominent apocalyptic folk artist Michael Gira named his newest project Angels of Light after San Francisco hippy Hibiscus's transcendental theatre group of the same name, and is responsible for guiding the career of new psych folk rising star, Devendra Banhart.

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Music genre: A music genre is a category (or genre) of pieces of music that share a certain style or "basic musical language" (van der Merwe 1989, p.3). Music can also be categorised by non-musical criteria such as geographical origin. Such categories are not strictly genre and a single geographical category wil...

Folk music: Folk music, in the original sense of the term, is music by and of the people. Folk music arose, and best survives, in societies not yet affected by mass communication and the commercialization of culture. It normally was shared and performed by the entire community (not by a special class of exper...

Psychedelic music: Psychedelic music is a musical genre which is not rigorously defined, and is sometimes interpreted to include everything from Flower Power music to Hard Rock and Acid Rock....

Psych folk related Images and Photos (experimental)

Folk Fawn	Psych Magnet	Folk Robin	Psych Toaster
Psych Wristband	Psych Fan Pack	Psych Gift Set	Psych Logo Tote
Folk Box Plum	Psych Quote Mug	Psych Green Pen	Psych Snow Globe