Exquisite Idols

2007 full-length release from Tulsa's The North Sea (Brad Rose). Rose is easily one of the Free-Folk movement's busiest exponents, splitting his time between running the Digitalis and Foxglove labels, the Foxy Digitalis webzine and writing his own music under a variety of different monikers with a host of collaborators. Somehow, he has found the time to craft Exquisite Idols, which elegantly follows a hugely acclaimed collaboration with 's Rameses III, Night of the Ankou. However, whereas Night of the Ankou explored both acts' occasional leanings towards ambience and drone, Exquisite Idols shows Rose digging deep into the dusty vaults of his American heritage and drumming up an album dripping with Blues, Folk and free experimentation. This is Folk music as played from a snow-drift in Tulsa, in a Midwest wasteland or a forgotten forest drenched in moonlight. It is personal, secluded and almost lonely, but Rose never allows the melancholy to take over. Exquisite Idols is an album steeped in tradition, yet it's greatness comes from Rose's ability to absorb other cultures so easily: there are traces of Indian traditional music, Greek music and more, all hidden within the cacophony of banjo, guitar and clanging percussion. This is what sets him apart from his contemporaries and makes his music so absorbing. Type.