NEW ALBUMS
SUNNY WAR
Anarchist Gospel NEW WEST 8/10
Fingerpicking alt.folk rebel exorcises demons both personal and ehcmical.
By Erin Osmon
JOSHUA BLACK WILKINS
DISCOVERED
Searching out the best albums new to Uncut
THE path from punk to folk and Americana is well tread, with Billy Bragg as the archetype, and Johnny Cash’s “American” recordings launching a thousand tattooed troubadours. But blues assayer Sunny War, a self-proclaimed fan of “outsider” music, is taking things a step further. With her, the unexpected is the expectation. With her, a Ween cover appears among a compelling amalgam of blues, folk and gospel.
Unlike so many drawn to tradition after years in the underground, she doesn’t put on an accent or model herself on a single aesthetic. Instead, through the originality of her fingerpicking and the might of her fortitude, she channels an entire breadth of folk music and refracts it through a modern DIY prism. She doesn’t parrot the rough and ready folk blues of Mississippi John Hurt and Elizabeth Cotten, or the soulful vulnerability of Elliott Smith and Joan Armatrading. She lives it and then draws from the wellspring.