BIRCH BOOK / Vol II (Folk)

ahnstern / Australia / 2008

M- / M- 20 €

"Birch Book is in reality singer/songwriter/guitarist Michael B'eirth (also known as B'ee), a rising star in the acid-folk and psych-folk scene. Fortune & Folly breaks down into two halves, the first addressing the fickle nature of fate and the second investigating life's journeys, both topics forever confronting the wandering minstrel, which B'ee sees himself as in a modern context. There's a sense of authenticity to his songwriting and delivery that evokes giants of the elder days including Nick Drake, Leonard Cohen, Steeleye Span and Fairport Convention." (Exposé)

"Fortune & Folly blends elements of idiosyncratic folk-pop and outcast-country with brooding layers of sound and sense, yielding a spectral ethereality in a captivating chiaroscuro thick with the visionary allusions of a haunted wanderer. About Birch Book: Variously labeled 'Wyrd', 'Psychedelic' or 'Avant Folk', IN GOWAN RING extend roots into poetic-folk traditions while cultivating an inimitable, self-attuned writing style that prefigured the new-psyche-folk movement." (Steinklang) 400 copies