Name: Sumer Is Icumen In: The Pagan Sound of British and Irish Folk 1966-1975
Brand: Various

Bonus disc

Bonus disc: No

Catalogue number

CRSEGBOX083

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Colour

Colour details

Discogs ID

Format multiplier

Download code

Download code: No

Rough Trade Exclusive

Rough Trade Exclusive: No

Extended format

Extended format: No

Format detail

Format Music GB

Limited edition

Release date

2020-11-27

Signed copies

Signed copies: No

Supplier GB

Cherry Red (ADA)

Tax rate GB

UPC / Barcode

5013929188303

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Total Cap

3 / CD / Extended format: No / Rough Trade Exclusive: No / Signed copies: No

Artist

Various

Genre GB

Folk

Label GB

Grapefruit

Released in 2015, Grapefruit’s 3-CD multi-artist British underground folk compilation Dust On The Nettles was widely praised, with a five-star review in The Times hailing it as “a delight from beginning to end”.

A long-overdue follow up to that set, Sumer Is Icumen In tightens the mesh by focusing on the point when traditional folksong and the burgeoning late Sixties counterculture collided, largely courtesy of seminal acts like the Incredible String Band, Fairport Convention and Pentangle.

As Steeleye Span’s Martin Carthy commented at the time, the scene had a strong pagan feel, dark and elemental, and progressive folk bands like Dr. Strangely Strange, Comus and Third Ear Band (who performed with the druids in dawn solstice ceremonies at Glastonbury Tor) were active at the same time as folklorists like Mr. Fox pair Bob and Carole Pegg and fellow husband-and-wife team Dave and Toni Arthur, whose commitment to the cause saw them dancing naked at a coven led by ‘King of the Witches’, the notorious Alex Sanders.

Showcasing all of the above names as well as a supporting cast that ranges from Mike Oldfield and Marc Bolan to unsigned bands who recorded demos in a barn, Sumer Is Icumen Infeatures four hours of Albion hymns ancient and modern, including three previously unreleased cuts. Housed in a stylish clamshell box, it includes a 40-page booklet with track-by-track annotation, numerous band quotes and some very rare photos.

The result is a secret glade in a darkly pagan woodland that’s peppered with invocations of corn gods, wicker men, bright Phoebus and other non-Christian deities; magickal tales of daemons, sorcerers, false knights and faerie queens; the medieval England myths, legends and traditions of the May Queen, John Barleycorn and the Green Man; paeans to the natural world and the rhythm of the passing seasons; fables of sanctuary stones, scarecrows and buried villages alongside dread stories of purgatory, sacrifice, rape, bestiality and murder.

Sumer Is Icumen In: The Pagan Sound of British and Irish Folk 1966-1975

Music GB