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LP
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DC 670LP
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Released in 2017. "Ed Askew recorded the sublimely gorgeous LP Ask the Unicorn in 1968 for the legendary proto-DIY label ESP records, which has now been recognized as a god-damn underground classic. Armed only with a tiple (sort of a South American mandolin) and his lilting neigh of a voice (and bearing superficial resemblances to labelmates Pearls Before Swine, and heady UK acoustic folkers Incredible String Band), Askew spun tales of doomed sisters, crashing universes, budding gay love, and a serious fondness for roses on his rare, precious and beautiful album. After this lone release, Ed Askew seemingly vanished in the romantic mists of time, until a second, previously unreleased album, surfaced in 2003, Little Eyes -- recorded but a few years after Ask the Unicorn, and every bit as honey-dipped by the musical gods. Since then, Askew has undergone a rightful resurgence, and surely everyone that ever dug a Donovan or Devendra tune has taken notice, so Ed's obscure 1984 cassette Imperfiction was also reissued by Galactic Zoo Disk/Drag City in 2011. Ed has since resumed making music, and has released several albums over the last decade -- but meanwhile, it appears the Askew historical goldmine had not been fully tapped! To wit, Ed unearthed four reels of radio sessions taped in 1969?70, performing songs from his first two albums (and the totally previously unreleased track, 'Green Song')! The tapes were meticulously studied by Galactic Zoo Disk honcho Plastic Crimewave (of Galactic Zoo Dossier, er, fame), and the best versions were extracted for this release -- absolutely stunning renditions of Askew standards like 'Fancy That' (with a sense of propulsive urgency not on the LP version, we'd say!) or 'Red Woman' and 'Mr. Dream' -- which are perhaps even more gooily gorgeous than the originals. In short folks, this new archival Ed Askew release A Child in the Sun, which features never-before-seen vintage photos, is astro folk gold."
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2x10"
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OKRAINA 004LP
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2014 release. Rose compiles two duos recorded at two radio sessions over two ten inch records. Ed Askew and Joshua Burkett live for Rob 'Hatch' Miller's show on WFMU in October of 2007. Ed Askew - words and music, voice, harmonica; Joshua Burkett - tiple; Recorded Irene Trudel of WFMU. Ed Askew and Steve Gunn live for Greg Healey's show on Dandelion Radio in March of 2010. Ed Askew - words and music, voice, harmonica; Steve Gunn - tiple; Recorded by Ed Askew. Re-mastered by Harris Newman of Grey Market Mastering, Montréal, in 2014. Artwork by Gwénola Carrère.
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LP
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DC 457LP
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"Anyone who loves 'outsider' folk legends from Tom Rapp to Roy Harper or Gary Higgins to Peter Grudzien knows the name of the legendary bard Ed Askew. His 1968 ESP Record Ask the Unicorn is quite simply one of the era's finest artifacts, full of lilting, prickly, chiming songs of loss, love and escapism -- maybe the gay Astral Weeks for the underground. Around the turn of the century, an equally compelling second album surfaced, Little Eyes, where our hero, armed only with tiple (a sort of Latin uke/banjo/guitar), laid out more heartbreaking baroque odes, all recorded in a single continuous take! Recorded for ESP in 1970, it never got past the test pressing stage and was eventually lost, until de Stijil came sniffing some thirty years on. After the 70s things get a bit foggy -- the odd radio session, some live performances, a lot of painting -- but there were no more proper albums to melt into. There wasn't an audience really, or more importantly, a label that believed in him. Fortunately in the early 80s, Ed got his hands on a harpsichord and tiple and a simple two-track recorder and laid down some of his tunes he'd been carrying around for years. Released only on cassette in miniscule quantities in 1984, Imperfiction contains the same emotionally raw yet wry observations, in a decidedly no-frills sonic setting. Broken glass on the sidewalk outside, nice boys he meets in bars, and the joyous act of songwriting itself are all fair game for subject matter, giving a unique and intimate self-portrait of a truly gifted songwriter. Imperfiction is now available for the first time on vinyl via Galactic Zoo Disk/Drag City, with vintage photos and liners and sound that will transport fans back to the old days of Askew in all of its seemingly transient glory. Fans of Daniel Johnson, early Jonathan Richman, Smog, Palace Brothers and other lo-fi troubadours would be wise to snatch up this limited pressing -- as all other GZDisk/Drag City titles have sold out early and often."
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CD
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SGR 002CD
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"Rainy Day Song is the first release of new Ed Askew material since Ed Askew/Ask the Unicorn (ESP-Disk, 1968). The scarcity of commercially available Ed Askew albums belies an artist in perpetual bloom -- painter and songwriter poet. After graduating from Yale Art School in 1966, Ed began teaching art in New Haven and shortly thereafter released his eponymous debut (later re-named Ask the Unicorn). Ed Askew recorded a follow up called Little Eyes that ESP-Disk chose, for unknown reasons, not to release (This album was finally issued on CD in 2007 by De Stijl Records). And now forty years have passed since the original ESP-Disk release and Ed Askew has a formidable backlog of unreleased music. Rainy Day Song, his most recent work, was recorded in the summer of 2007 in New York City, where Ed has lived since moving there from New Haven in the 1980s. He says: 'When I start a song it's a kind of virgin situation. There are certain things I do and I have my character like everybody has their character. But I believe on some level that it comes from nothing -- there are certain things you do -- but in a sense: who does it?' Lyrically, Askew bears a striking resemblance to Paul Goodman, the mid-20th century New York City poet, novelist, gestalt psychologist, and anarchist social theorist. Like Goodman's poetry, Askew's lyrics shift effortlessly from contemplative abstraction to political tirades, from naturalist landscapes to graphic descriptions of urban street life, from childhood vignettes to tales of gay romance-conveyed in language that's at once elegant and conversational. Also like Goodman, Askew displays (in both his lyrics and his music) a stubborn indifference to contemporary fashion. If that's what makes Askew's music such a hard sell for current labels and commercial audiences, it's also the source of its timelessness. Whether you choose to listen to it now or wait for the next round of 'reissues' forty years from now, this is music that will endure." --David Shirley
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