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'Free Folk' Is On The Turntable At Reverberation Vinyl

Jon Norton
/
WGLT

Reverberation Vinyl on Main street in Bloomington is not unlike other local record stores.  As you're browsing the bins, the music playing on the stores turntable or CD player is fairly representative of the owner's personal taste.  But at Reverberation Vinyl, you're likely to hear sounds that color a bit more outside the lines.

Yes, you'll hear legendary names including Prince, the Beach Boys, and Traffic, and even lesser known but influential bands like Love, and Os Mutantes.  But you're just as likely to hear the soundtrack to classic German horror films, a long lost Brazilian gem, or eccentrics like Jandek, whose atonal music may have you wondering if Anderson is just checking to see if you're paying attention.

In the past few weeks, a somewhat obscure neo-psychedelic group with an often drone-like experimental rock sound hinting at folk was Anderson's go-to music.  The group with a deep library of studio and live recordings is the Vermont based "MV & EE," a collaboration by partners Matt "MV" Valentine and Erika "EE" Elder.  Anderson uses the term "Free Folk" to describe the groups sound.  It's a term coined by Valentine that Anderson interprets as "a folky sound with an avant-garde or free jazz approach."

Click "Listen" below to hear what geeks Anderson about MV & EE, and to hear a representative sample of the duo's discography.

Jon Norton is the program director at WGLT and WCBU. He also is host of All Things Considered every weekday.