Robin Crutchfield — The Hidden Folk

Robin Crutchfield started his musical life back in the mid 1970’s when he formed & played keyboards in the seminal & respected no-wave band DNA with Arto Lindsay and Ikue Mori. His new album 'The Hidden Folk' is million miles away from no-waves jerking & often discordant sonic world; this offer up collection nineteen short tracks of earthy, haunted sometimes cute, sometimes eerier  folk, music box unfolds & woodland bound moodsetting

Crutchfield utilises: harp, thumb piano, wooden vibes & gamelan, zither and a whole host of  other wooden & ancient stringed instruments  to build the tracks child like harmonics, and thier hypnotic & yet simply repetitions. Most of the tracks here fall between the minute & a half to two minute mark a piece and they find Crutchfield offer up his simply yet haunting layers of wooden percussion, earthy & music box like string pick ‘n’ pluck & eerier folk drones.  It feels like this could be the lost soundtrack to some strange eastern European stop monition animation film from the late 70’s or early 80’s about a odd collection of woodland animals & mystical creatures. All told the album as a whole offers up a very unusual mixture of cuteness & creepiness.

Through-out ‘The Hidden Folk’ Crutchfield offers up a selection of tracks that managed to be harmonic, atmospheric & often very hypotonic, yet there’s always this very knowing & unspoken feeling of dread ever present in even the brightest sonic connors of the tracks like the always present shadows in even the sunniest of woodlands.