You Never Were Much Of A Dancer

by Gwenifer Raymond

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dave doran Acoustic picker music tends to sound the same and it's the rare musician who can build an entire album of disparate and excellent renderings like these. Wow.

Dumb mmmn I don't know how many examples of taxidermy there are on the cover, but there are 13 examples of crazy acoustic instrumental dexterity here that, coupled with the expressionless gaze on the cover makes me think Ms. Raymond may be a robot (or at least have bionic hands & a stoic demeanor) Favorite track: Bleeding Finger Blues.

Masters Losey I was just browsing the folk section and this one of the first few albums that came up and I decided to listen. I listened to Sometimes There’s Blood and the mixture of the technical display alongside with a dark folk sound and melodies really captured my attention. I was amazed by the songcrafting that I immediately bought the vinyl to this and I have to say not bad at all for a PhD in astrophysics!

Deidre House Finger-pickin' guitar and banjo tunes in American traditional style, but with a darker feel than usual. Great album! Favorite track: Bleeding Finger Blues.

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Full Digital Discography

60

releases

Get all 60 Tompkins Square releases available on Bandcamp and save 75%.

Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of The Little Drummer Boy Christmas Medley, Ten Years Gone : A Tribute to Jack Rose, No Other Love : Midwest Gospel (1965-1978), Imaginational Anthem, Vol. 7, Imaginational Anthem, Vol. 6 : Origins of American Primitive Guitar, Imaginational Anthem vol. 5, Imaginational Anthem Vols. 1-3, Imaginational Anthem 4 : New Possibilities, and 52 more. , and , .

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	1.	Off to See the Hangman, Part I 00:56
	2.	Sometimes There's Blood 04:48
	3.	Idumea 02:41
	4.	Off to See the Hangman, Part II 04:44
	5.	Face Down Strut 01:35
	6.	Laika's Song 01:48
	7.	Oh, Command Me Lord ! 02:12
	8.	Sweep It Up 02:03
	9.	Requiem for John Fahey 03:03
	10.	Dance of the Everlasting Faint 04:26
	11.	Bleeding Finger Blues 01:57
	12.	Sack 'Em Up, Parts I & 2 05:41
	13.	It Was All Sackcloth and Ashes 03:24

about

Tompkins Square is very proud to announce the signing of Welsh multi-instrumentalist, Gwenifer Raymond. Hailing from Cardiff and now residing in Brighton in the South of England, Raymond began playing guitar at the age of eight. Tompkins Square released her debut 7" on Record Store Day. Praise via The Wire, BBC, MOJO, UNCUT and more.

In her own words ....

When I was about eight years old a pretty formative thing happened to me ... my mum bought me a cassette tape of Nirvana’s Nevermind. Being so young I'd had no real interest in music prior to that, but I did have a ‘My First Sony’ cassette player that I used to listen to audiobooks. Anyway, I put the tape in, pressed play, and what I heard blew my little 8 year old mind. I don't know what it was about that wall of sound that so captured me, but I spent many hours hyperactively running around the house with headphones on, volume at full blast, and Nevermind on repeat. It was either for Christmas or my birthday that year, that I asked for a guitar.

I spent all my teenage years playing either guitar or drums in various punk and rock outfits around the Welsh valleys, but around that time I was also getting seriously into older stuff, Dylan, The Velvet Underground and the like. Through those cheap compilation CDs you could get then, I found that a common influence amongst these guys was pre-war delta and country blues, as well as Appalachian music. Eventually I stumbled upon Mississippi John Hurt, Skip James and Roscoe Holcomb, and they became the holy trinity of musicians I so wanted to able to play like. Eventually, I tracked down a blues man in Cardiff who could teach me and it was in studying these guys that I was introduced to John Fahey and the whole American Primitive thing.

I’ve always loved being in bands and the sonic chemistry it produces, but at the same time it’s always a bit of a compromise that those sounds in my head have to pass through and be translated by someone else’s. Sometimes it can be for the better, but sometimes not so much. American Primitive was the first time it had occurred to me that you didn’t really need anything more than one solo instrument to fully express yourself, especially when those feelings and moods refuse to be articulated in words, sometimes it's a mystery to yourself what it is you’re expressing. I still play in hard rock and punk bands and love to wail and hit my guitar with a complete lack of any subtlety or nuance, but in the end I think that all these things are really part of a circle, feeding back into itself. It’s all just a lineup of strange mutations.

"Deep Sea Diver / Bleeding Finger Blues " - 7" (TSQ 5524)
You Never Were Much A Dancer - LP (TSQ 5531) / CD (TSQ 5562)

credits

released June 26, 2018

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about

Tompkins Square San Francisco, California

Tompkins Square label, established in 2005, has released acclaimed recordings by artists such as William Tyler, Ryley Walker and Michael Chapman as well as reissues of folk, old-timey, gospel and American Primitive Guitar. The label has received 8 Grammy nominations. ... more

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