The compilations curator and organiser is none other than Gerhard Hallstatt, who of course has been the main and constant mind behind the Allerseelen project and it’s distinctive mixture of  post industrial, folk, military pop and all manner of experimental music.  Each of the twelve projects taking part in the compilation where  selectively chosen  by Hallstatt  from  worldwide artists he admire or has some connection with, and each  project had to  create a exclusive track that was either in praise of the oak tree or somehow about it. So as you can imagine this is a very varied, quirky, beautiful and often surprising collection of tracks.

On the whole pretty much ever track here is great, but a few of my present favourites are: the jaunting and highly Germanic accordion laced drinking mountain folk of
Swiss based project Fräkmündt and their track “Eiche, Tüüfu, Geissebueb”.  Hrefnesholt’s “Winter Eiche” and it’s off kilter yet dramatic mix of  strummed  forlorn folk, Black metal vocals ‘n’ riffing and  jazzy panio edges. The woodland sinister meets overgrown junkyard, meets brooding alpine folk groove of Sturmpercht’s  “Die Tausendjährige Eiche”. The weathered almost country like male vocals and forlorn yet harmonic raising acoustic strum of Changers “The Oak Trees”.

The disc comes in a six panel glossy digit-pak that features moody pictures of oak leafs, oak bark and branches- it all looks very nice and fits the compilations concept perfectly. I only wished  that maybe they could have added a booklet to the set talking about each band involved, and of course about the oak tree it’s self- but this is just a minor moan really.

So all told this is a very well thought out, put together and wholly consistent compilation of creative and experimental line folk music that pays tribute to the wonder, grace and strength of the mighty oak tree.