The North Sea
Exquisite Idols
Type 2007

01. Eternal Birds
02. Guiwenneth of the Green Grass
03. We Conquered the Golden Age
04. Take It from Me Brother Moses
05. Cover Me with Knives
06. Children of the Ashes
07. And Then the Solstice Disappeared
08. Feather-Cloaked Silver Priestess

Brad Rose is easily one of the free-folk movement's busiest exponents, splitting his time somehow between running the Digitalis and Foxglove labels, the FoxyDigitalis webzine and writing his own music under a variety of different monikers with a host of collaborators (Ajilvsga, Eastern Fox Squirrels, Alligator Crystal Moth, Corsican Paintbrush, Sea Zombies). Through all this pain and suffering at the hands of a busy and now somewhat hip scene he has managed to put together a brand new album which elegantly follows a hugely acclaimed collaboration with UK's Rameses III Night of the Ankou. However, whereas Night of the Ankou explored both acts occasional leanings towards ambience and drone, Exquisite Idols instead shows Rose digging deep into the dusty vaults of his American heritage and drumming up an album dripping with blues, folk and free experimentation. This is folk music as played from a snow-drift in Tulsa, in a Mid-West wasteland or a forgotten forest drenched in moonlight, it is personal, secluded and almost lonely, but Rose never allows the melancholy to take over. -Type

>> fsend / mfire (44mb)
>> love it, buy it (Norman)

Yeah, that's right, it's as close as we will ever get here to blues-folk and Americana. After lending his name to so many "far-out" projects, Brad Rose seems to opt for more traditional styles on his first proper album. And it's working highly in his favour, at least from the solo point of view, because what strikes you from the start is how both devoted and detached his music works. Tricky character, for sure. A few good listens given, I somehow come to associate Exquisite Idols with Panda Bear's Person Pitch. Neither too light nor too brain, but bold and quite out there on its own.