The Davenport Family

 Field Tales is a double-disc collection of 35 field recordings from the Davenport Family (aka Davenport), a Wisconsin collective that jams and records like digital-age salt-of-the-earth indie-folk types inside rustic barns, in pastures, in the woods .... However, these musicians don't "gather 'round the campfire" reinterpreting ancient folk tunes. Instead, they create improvised, ritualistic noise comprised of stringed instruments, hand-held percussion, human voice, and the random atmospheric chatter endemic to recording out-of-doors (dogs barking, birds chirping, wind blowing, etc.). Imagine a musical commune of old friends and family who prefer free jazz and electronic psychedelia to bluegrass and Irish folk. It's an idea I still really dig despite the fact that it has become the basis for a well-articulated subcultural commodity regularly referred to as "free folk" or "New Weird America." On the other hand, after listening to and casually enjoying a slew of Davenport's limited-edition discs including Field Tales, I'm still left wanting a truly definitive piece of work from these guys. These free-folkie types need to produce a couple of bona fide classics in order to justify the movement's ever-growing hype.