Abendlandung # 136 – Electric Eden Special, Part 1

Tonight we have the first of a series of Abendlandung specials on Rob Young’s wonderful book “Electric Eden – Unearthing Britains Visionary Music”. Unlike usual, this show, as well as the other Electric Eden specials, will be in english (with eastern Belgian accent).

In this first part, we hear music by: Frederick Delius, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Gustav Holst, Arnold Bax, John Ireland, Duncan Mcphee & Frank Quinn, Jeannie Robertson, Alan Lomax, Philip Astle & Paul Williamson, The Magpie Horns, Ewan MacColl, Peggy Seeger, Shirley Collins, Davy Graham, Bert Jansch, John Renbourn, Anne Briggs, The Watersons, The Young Tradition.

Note: there is a mistake in the show: The third piece, by Gustav Holst, is not from “Mass of Life” (which is by Frederick Delius), but from his composition “The Hymn of Jesus”. Please excuse this!

The Book: In Rob Young’s groundbreaking survey of more than a century of music making in the British Isles, Rob Young investigates how the idea of folk has been handed down and transformed by successive generations – song collectors, composers, Marxist revivalists, folk-rockers, psychedelic voyagers, free festival-goers, experimental pop stars and electronic innovators.

In a sweeping panorama of Albion’s soundscape that takes in the pioneer spirit of Cecil Sharp; the pastoral classicism of Ralph Vaughan Williams and Peter Warlock; the industrial folk revival of Ewan MacColl and A. L. Lloyd; the folk-rock of Fairport Convention, Sandy Denny, Nick Drake, Shirley Collins, John Martyn and Pentangle; the bucolic psychedelia of The Incredible String Band, The Beatles and Pink Floyd; the acid folk of Comus, Forest, Mr Fox and Trees; The Wicker Man and occult folklore; the early Glastonbury and Stonehenge festivals; and the visionary pop of Kate Bush, Julian Cope and Talk Talk, Electric Eden maps out a native British musical voice that reflects the complex relationships between town and country, progress and nostalgia, radicalism and conservatism.