The Quietus - A new rock music and pop culture website

Baker's Dozen

Something Searing: Yannis Philippakis Of Foals' Favourite Albums
Lisa Lavery , August 26th, 2015 09:56

Before the release of new album What Went Down, the Foals frontman gives Lisa Lavery his top 13 LPs, all records united by "people's voices that connect directly", moving through Arthur Russell, Pixies and Howlin' Wolf

Murderous_home_1440521656_resize_460x400

Various - Prison Songs • Historical Recordings From Parchman Farm 1947-48 • Volume One: Murderous Home
Alan Lomax was a folklorist and ethnomusicologist who was making archival recordings and field recordings in the 40s, and this album consists mainly of prison chain gang songs. The first time I heard it, it stopped me in my tracks - it was incredibly moving to hear because it's just the sound of male voices and pickaxes and nothing else... it sounds haunted but hopeful. Like listening to ghosts, the quality of the singing and the recording [is such] that you can never have again - a document of its time. It's spiritual: the pain is in their singing, which would have been their only mode of expression. It's singular and not something I'd put on everyday, being a heavy listen.