Neofolk Appreciation

hi guys,been a while of me thinking can Neofolk be added here?

Edited by katatonia - December 24 2014 at 00:09

you got me wrong dude,I was talking about the genre that we could fit neofolk into it,maybe into crossover or progfolk or sth else.I couldn't explain it more clear.hope you have read my topic at least.maybe it was better to say neofolk discussion 

Edited by katatonia - December 23 2014 at 12:23

done bro 

Current 93 and Wovenhand are both listed here under "progressive folk", which in each case surprised me quite a bit. Also, no thread about neofolk is complete without a link to this article sarcastically dropkicking the surrounding subculture.

I'm not sure all the "Neofolk" bands fit into a single genre, especially given the limited range of genres we have here on Progarchives. And IMHO not all the acts listed as Neofolk in the Wikipedia article referenced above actually fall into the same category. I certainly would never assume any link between say, Sol Invictus or Faun, and Wovenhand or Juana Molina for example. David Eugene Edwards comes from the Slim Cessna's Auto Club / 16 Horsepower / Strawfoot / Beat Circus / Reverend Glasseye / Calexico strain of new folk, and probably owes a greater debt to the likes of Tom Waits and Captain Beefheart than to pagan or goth influences. Juana Molina seems stylistically closer to Laurie Anderson or This Mortal Coil to me.

As for Current 93, I added them because we in Prog Folk felt David Tibet belonged here somewhere and at the time nobody else would have him. I really thought one of the other genre teams would volunteer to accept him once we'd done the work of adding the considerable discography, but so far that hasn't happened. Tenhi was added before my time with the Prog Folk team; I personally would have preferred to see them added to Post Rock.

I think each of the bands who claim, or are lumped into, the "Neofolk" category deserve their own independent consideration. Some of the groups listed in the Wikipedia article are here in Prog Folk, some in Crossover, and some have been considered and rejected altogether. IMHO the Neofolk label doesn't automatically qualify a group as progressive; actually some of the later acts seem too derivative to me to be added here anywhere (Rome is one that comes to mind).


Edited by ClemofNazareth - December 24 2014 at 14:36

Well, neofolk is basically what happens when goths and rivetheads discover folk music.

Edited by Toaster Mantis - December 28 2014 at 04:59

I really don't think neofolk can be seen as prog, since the biggest bands of the genre like Death in June, Current 93 and Sol Invictus rely mostly on simple-structured short songs in the folk tradition, with few to no variations. Some other tracks are more experimental or industrial (like Di6's Wall of Sacrifice) but still not close to prog in my opinion...

Who started all this sub gene business, anyway?

^Wow! That's great TM. Thanks.