FOLKLORE

AGENT: JIMMY

AVAILABILITY: GENERALLY AVAILABLE FOR OFFERS / UPCOMING SHOWS

TOOLS: MAKE AN OFFER / PROMO MATERIALS / PUBLICITY

BAND SITES: OFFICIAL BAND WEBSITE / FACEBOOK PAGE

LABEL: SGMG RECORDS (US) / INDIECATER RECORDS (IRELAND)

FREE MP3: The Party

HOMETOWN: Philadelphia, PA / Athens, GA

DISCOGRAPHY:

2011 - HOME CHRUCH ROAD CD / LP

2008 - CARPENTER'S FALLS CD

2007 - THE GHOST OF H.W. BEAVERMAN CD

BIO:

A mini-orchestra of players performing live in the split hometowns of Athens GA / Philadelphia PA, lead by common member Jimmy Hughes. A veteran to the Athens music scene where he plays with the likes of Elf Power and Vic Chesnutt, Hughes took the songwriter role when he formed Folklore in 2005 to create two conceptual albums: The Ghost Of H.W. Beaverman (2007) and Carpenter’s Falls (2008).  Both based around a grandiose ghost story with different vocalists cast to sing each song, these albums offer splendid melodies at every turn with clarinets, strings, trumpet, didgeridoo, and more forming the backdrop to songs that critics have called poignant, provocative, heartbreaking, and haunting.  The latest album keeps true to the lyrical storytelling process that the band was founded on by presenting an epic story of the Earth after human extinction.

In 2009, Hughes relocated to Philadelphia where he managed to find eight people who wanted to continue playing as Folklore. So what would have most likely faded into a lost bedroom project is now a stronger than ever live band in Philadelphia.  Home Church Road features both the Athens and the Philadelphia players (though the Philly players are the ones who tour).  Musically, the concept album is a landscape that does not commit to one immediate style, but rather, it is orchestrated in whichever direction best suits the narrative, the end result weaving tender somber moments with raunchy punk rock guitars and noise elements.

 

REVIEWS:

(Home Church Road) celebrates the time when so many things just begin to feel out of character... Hughes, as a writer, taps into the intuitive parts of the head and the spirit that should be the loudest, but are often told to pipe down because that's how everyone's told to work... "The Party," an especially great song on the record, is a take on where society stands in its current murkiness... It takes on a society that wants to be involved, but doing so blindly, with the greatest desire to stay connected only lightly, but to everything imaginable - people, places, things, faith and themselves.
-Daytrotter

There’s still something admittedly inviting about the lo-fi production values and strummy folk-rock that are Hughes’ stock-in-trade here... merging electronic burbles and effects-treated vocals with blistering amplifier feedback and the clarion tones of a clarinet.  This balanced composite of the unwieldy and the understated works in spades for Hughes, allowing even the most cynical of listeners – yours truly included – to take in the alternately utopian and dystopian backstory without any drudgery.

- Delusions Of Adequacy

Home Church Road is so varied that it sounds like a indie-film soundtrack... The songs live in the present, flowing from chilly meandering experiments to folky melodies to electro-glitch to hook-laden rock anthems. The collection reminds me it takes more than just good intentions to craft cathartic challenges to traditional indie-rock conventions.

- Three Imaginary Girls

(Carpenter's Falls is) a lush, epic album with storylines, plots and climaxes. With pronounced experimental and folk influences, the aptly-named band is more akin to the dense psychedelia of Olivia Tremor Control than the indie pop of Elf Power.
-Philadelphia Weekly

Folklore’s debut is a lovely opaque work that should appear on all serious Best of 2008 lists… a totally satisfying blend of imagination, truth, myth, personal history, bullshit, nostalgia, experiment and philosophy.

-PopMatters

Folklore, a new project from Elf Power guitarist Jimmy Hughes with quite an intriguing premise… Sample tune H.W. Beaverman ain't too shabby, packing enough melody into its layers and vocal cataracts to make it worth a download.
-Pitchfork

On last year's The Ghost Of H.W. Beaverman and the new 'companion' LP, Carpenter's Falls, he tells his tales through multiple perspectives and with an otherworldly catchiness. Innocent and melodic as they sound, Hughes' vocals seem to circle up from woozy recollections, as does an instrumental blend that takes in everything from guitar to slide whistle to clarinet to trumpet. For such an esoteric concept, it's got a child-like sense of play.

-The Onion AV Club

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