With a running time of more than four hours (60-plus tracks across three discs that are accompanied by a heavily illustrated and annotated booklet), Dust on the Nettles may engender the occasional sting of bemused disappointment, but it definitely delivers an overview of that moment in the 1960s when the traditional was being usurped by the countercultural.
Of course, such things happen all the time in art; something that has been standard for decades gets skewed by a different kind of logic, and traditionalists fume at the upstarts that dare to (as they see it) dilute or pollute.
Via an exhaustive trawl through the archives, Dust on the Nettles provides reasons for the demise of old-style folk clubs and the emergence of new folk pioneers: the drug-using experimentalists, the nascent singer-songwriter movement, the fusion of folk forms with rock music, and – rarely touched upon – the influence of religion, from paganism to Christianity.
Familiar names are here (Steeleye Span, Pentangle, Fairport Convention – Simon Nicol and Dave Pegg, right – Incredible String Band, Joan Armatrading, Tyrannosaurus Rex – soon to morph into glam pop sensations, T Rex), along with names that were once known, then forgotten, and are now on the lips of freak-folk afficionados (Vashti Bunyan, Bill Fay, Anne Briggs, Kevin Coyne, Comus). Still others made music, disappeared, and were never heard of again (anyone recall Chrissie Quayle, Oberon, Folkal Point, or Fresh Maggots?).
What Dust on the Nettles does is highlight the notion of change, and how a certain movement at a particular time can cause climactic shifts not only in the zeitgeist but in the music itself.
There are too-long drum solos here and there, and some song arrangements are so bewildering they’ll have you reaching for the oxygen mask, but overall this is a wonderful glimpse into folk music’s past, and a reminder of how it shaped the present.
