Caedmon's Return

There's exciting news today that the band Caedmon has re-formed after a gap of some 30 years. Some analysts have listed Caedmon and Parchment as the two Christian acid folk bands of the 70s. It's probably a false categorisation as their musical styles of the two bands, both British, overlapped with a number of other progressive folk bands such as Reynard, Water into Wine Band, Candle Factory.

Here's a YouTube video of the band gigging together over the weekend:


There are plans for a new album and here's their new website, Caedmon's Return.

This is a link to our original posting on Caedmon where there's been quite a lot of discussion about the band's history and the question of whether their album rates as the greatest acid folk album of all time or not. There's a also an account of an unsuccessful attempt to form a kind of Christian acid folk supergroup between members of Parchment and Caedmon in the early 80s.

Ken Patterson of the band tells us they plan to introduce new instruments such as trombone, accordion and drumkit.

A Shamblejam review

Here's a link to an interesting reminiscence about Parchment's third album Shamblejam.

It's an album that enjoys a kind of cult status in the blogosphere. It's unusual name makes it easy to track down references. It was also the only album released directly in the USA by Myrrh so it ended up as an oddity in quite a few collections. Whisky Prajer's comments are typical of what you will find - the listener knew nothing about the band, or even whether Shamblejam was the band or the album, only that here was a unique sound.

I'd find it hard to review the album. As with all the band's albums, my first impressions remain vivid. The first two tracks were familiar ground. The manic mandolin on Denomination Blues, the folk harmonies and pseudo-hippy mysticism on Green Psalm. Then it entered unfamiliar territory, borrowing from other styles and yet still quintessentially Parchment, both cheerful and reflective, even melancholy all at once. Great musicianship, great production, great song-writing and great singing from Sue McClellan. Follow the link for an account that describes this album far better than I can.