Celebrations for a Grey Day

In the mid 60s, the US folk scene faced a schism as Dylan broke ranks and folk rock, then later psychedelia, diluted what many saw as the integrity of the music. In 1965, however, Richard and Mimi Fariña found an entirely different route from within folk’s roots.

The instrumentation on their debut album together, Ricard’s dulcimer and Mimi’s acoustic guitar, and the songs were traditional enough — there’s even a burst of “Good King Wenceslas” at one point — but the hypnotic trance the pair whip up playing in tandem creates a liminal space between the old weird America and its uncertain future.

“Pack Up Your Sorrows” may be the best-known track — an almost-pop moment later covered by Joan Baez — but where the record really captivates is on the instrumentals. The pair’s use of drone and pentatonics predated the psychedelic rock crowd’s fascination with eastern music by two years, while “V.”, shifting between serene contemplation and jagged urgency, is essentially The Velvet Underground’s “Venus In Furs” without the S&M kinkiness. Richard died a year later, but here he left something which still radiates its own strange magic.