BIRCH BOOK — Fortune & Folly

"Now also on vinyl! Comes in heavy fold-out cover, with 2 extra tracks. Recorded on San Juan Island of the Pacific Northwest, Fortune & Folly is the fitting second volume of BIRCH BOOK (also known as IN GOWAN RING). Assuming the allegorical emblems of The Wheel of Fortune and The Traveling Fool, Fortune & Folly distill the introspections of a perennial rambler reckoning the Bitter and the Bliss of The Road Less Traveled. Drifting away from the overtly psychedelic, medieval, and soporific atmosphere which typified IN GOWAN RING, Bee displays a more organic, individualistic approach to songwriting. 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. As poet, pilgrim, progenitor of wyrd-folk and maestro of IN GOWAN RING, Jon Michael Beirth (otherwise B'ee) has developed a homespun sonic tapestry with peculiar richness of vision; recording over ten full length albums and performing throughout North America & Europe in veritable itinerant fashion amidst a dozen years against the grain. As well as composing the original material for BIRCH BOOK & IN GOWAN RING, Bee collects renditions of traditional songs and builds many of the acoustic instruments featured in performances and recordings such as the recent lyre-guitar & leaf cittern. Though largely self-taught, he has didactically studied the music of the Trouveres and Troubadours, the counterpoint of the High Renaissance, and modern orchestration."
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