In a Britain in an alternate universe where paganistic villagers performed fertility rites, sacrificed policemen in burning wicker effigies and sang folk songs with hidden paganistic undernotes you can imagine this compilation being enjoyed on PYE stereo systems or in-car Grundig cassette players.
Mental imagery of remote rural areas of the UK like the Pennine ridge of the Yorkshire dales and the Peak district with perhaps lots of woolen sweatered fishermen or farmer types (because why there would be fishermen in the Pennines I have no idea. Holiday perhaps?), busty lusty young Brit Eckland look-a-likes and manbeards worn for warmth rather than style. Burning log fires in remote rural public houses on the moors. Folk musicians holding their ears to keep in tune and the familiar pong of veganism. These are all brought to mind when listening to the British dark folk compilation John Barleycorn Reborn (JBR) (2007).
I had long lusted after JBR since Amazon first suggested it would sit nicely in my music library. Of course, not feeling confident that I would enjoy it because of the number of bands and songs I’d never heard of, I resisted, seeking only to try and obtain it during the great internet download free for all of the mid to late noughties. However, as recently as last year, I found the album on Apple Music together with its brother and followup compilation, John Barleycorn Reborn: Rebirth (2011).
As I took great interest in the neofolk movement that took alternative, mature and adult music to new levels across continental Europe the late noughties, I’m more aware that JBR is purely a British attempt to break into an already dying subculture. Yes we had the hauntology bit on our side (as the likes of Belbury Poly and similar bands from Ghostbox have shown) and we do hauntology well, but the dark/neo folk was becoming old hat and middleaged exgoth hipsters were already starting to reinvent themselves in other ways.
The compiler has put a lot of effort into these albums and, while they ooze hauntology, they stink of the imitation of the earlier neofolk compendium Looking for Europe (2007) which is much richer in diversity. Some strong acts feature especially the likes of Sieben, Sol Invicitus, Far Black Furlong and Martyn Bates while other groups linger, tempting the listener to delve into their own back catalogue while supping a nice warm frothing pint of Badgers Nipple and smoking a pipe.
Track listing for John Barleycord Reborn: Dark Britannica
Listen on Amazon or Apple Music
John Barleycorn 3:56 The Horses Of The Gods
North, County Maid 2:40 The Owl Service
The Wicker Man 2:31 The Story
Spirit of Albion 4:16 Damh the Bard
Twa Corbies 5:14 Mary Jane
Dives and Lazarus 6:30 Andrew King
Three Crowns 5:38 The Triple Tree
To Kills All Kings 5:01 Sol Invictus
Ogham on the Hill 4:04 Sieben
Horn Dance 3:31 Sharron Kraus
Lay Bent To the Bonny Broom 7:55 Charlotte Greig and Johan Asherton
The Burning of Auchindoun 5:44 Pumajaw
The Scryer and the Shewstone 5:07 Peter Ulrich
Where the Hazel Grows 4:31 alphane moon
Hippomania 6:51 English Heretic
Icy Solstice Eye 3:28 Far Black Furlong
John Barleycorn Must Die 4:37 The Anvil
To Make You Stay 2:55 Tinkerscuss
Trial By Bread and Butter 3:37 The Straw Bear Band
The Sorrow of Rimmon 3:56 Electronic Voice Phenomina
Dragonfly 4:21 The Purple Minds of Lazeron
Stained Glass Morning 5:56 Sand Snowman
Summerhouse 5:11 The A Lords
The Guidman’s Ground 4:19 The Kitchen Cynics
PewPew 2:33 Quickthorn
Reed Sodger 4:20 Clive Powell
Child 102 Willie and Earl Richard’s Daughter 7:33 Venereum Arvum
Nottamun Town 6:55 Drohne
Gargoyle 6:16 Stormcrow
Pact 4:21 Doug Peters
Obsidian Blade 5:07 While Angels Watch
John Barleycorn: This Life, Death and Resurrection 4:51 Xenis Emputae Travelling Band
The Resurrection Apprentice 2:31 Martyn Bates
Track listing for John Barleycorn Reborn: Rebirth
Listen on Amazon or Apple Music
The Rolling of the Stones 2:04 Magpiety
All Hallow’s Eve 5:05 Story, The
Wood 4:57 Telling the Bees John
Bonny Jaycock Turner 2:42 David A Jaycock
Oh My Boy, My Bonny Boy 2:30 Yealand Redmayne
The Bold Fisherman 4:36 Charlotte Greig & Johan Asherton
Tierceron 4:00 Steve Tyler
The Wendigo 6:24 Wendigo, The
Wake the Vaulted Echo (Tigon Mi 4:53 Owl Service,
The East Room V 3:33 Far Black Furlong
Brightening Dew 3:10 Xenis Emputae Travelling Band
Corvus Monedula 4:08 Sedayne
Bear Ghost 5:02 Straw Bear Band, The
Scythe To the Grass 3:06 Novemthree
Lavondyss 4:55 Paul Newman
Kingfisher Blue 5:16 James Reid
(Digging the) Midnight Silver 4:18 JefvTaon
Children’s Soul 1:48 Wooden Spoon
A Dream of Fires 3:21 Big Eyes Family Players, The
Improvisation At Kilpeck, June 4:18 Sundog
Ca the Horse, Me Marra 11:17 Clive Powell
Jack In the Green 2:41 Mac Henderson And Grand Union Morris
Seven Sleepers, Seven Sorrows 11:58 Cunnan
The Silkie 3:52 Orchis
Thistles 5:28 Twelve Thousand Days
Harvest Dance 2:31 Novemthree
Elder 3:45 James Reid
When I Was In My Prime 5:07 Mary Jane
Ognor Mi Trovo 3:18 Daughters of Elvin
De Poni Amor a Me 6:17 Misericordia
Child 102 (Lily Flower Mix) 7:54 Venereum Arvum
John Barleycorn Must Live 5:37 Anvil, The
The Old Way 0:45 Sunshine Coding
There are as many compilations claiming to be the best of gothic rock entitled Into Temptation as there are compilations claiming to be the best of gothic rock. Confusing really as this isn’t really what I’d call Gothic Rock, it’s what I’d call Scandinavian symphonic rock fronted by tight-fitting low cleavaged black catsuit wearing busty sirens in a wind tunnel aimed at appealing to frustrated teenage males with big hair and middle-aged balding forty-somethings trying to recapture their lost youth.
Ghost Box. The stable from where delights such as 
Jarvis Cocker and Sheffield’s finest with an hour and twenty minutes of lyrics illustrating gritty northern GenX premillennial social situations. Â How times have changed. Yet Pulp is still powerfully relevant and reflective of youthful experiences.
Back in the dark days of the mid to late eighties, when it was acceptable to go out wearing lurid colours, leotards and sweat bands, a unique music video was doing the rounds on Saturday morning children’s TV shows and it wasn’t anything to do with 
Another bootleg, another band; You won’t find Gut Feeling in the shops, but you will find it during the music download free for all mid-noughties. Like I did.
It often seems like people tell me that I should like bands more than I do.
Spanish guitar wanking with France’s own Gypsy Kings. Yeah I didn’t know they were French either.
These Greatest Hits albums feel almost never ending.
A compilation featuring the “best” of the Eurythmics.
As we finally come out of the (reduced) gothic compilation portion of the project, we see the peaks of “Greatest Hits” ahead of us but until then there are a few more albums we need to visit.
More neoclassical caterwauling from Brendan Perry with added woeful wailing from Lisa Gerrard in this compilation of bootlegged performances from across Dead Can Dance’s “Golden Age”.
My music collection and thus Stegzy’s Music Project has more gold than Fort Knox it seems. This time it’s Swedish gold from seventies/eighties pop gods, Abba.
Another case of “Why have I got this?”. Gold Collection is essentially one of the bands many greatest hits compilations available on the market
There was a fleeting moment when I thought relatives of Kirsty MacColl lived in my street when I was growing up. Instead it turned out Andrea McCann wasn’t related, but just happened that she looked a little bit like her. If you squinted.
Avant Garde shite I downloaded in an effort to out weird hipsters. 
Scandinavian rock valkyries again, this time with a live set featuring Nightwish’s pre-breakup line-up and Tarja Turunen.
Another appearance from Carl McCoy and his dust ridden forsaken cowboys, Fields of the Nephilim. This time with another compilation of songs from their catalogue. I’m not sure if it’s the lack of production or what, but to me this sounds more like recording of a tribute act than actual Nephilim songs. In the recording I have, McCoy sounds like he’s singer from a slightly higher register than usual.
At this point, anyone who knows me personally will no doubt be thinking “Hang on, Dance/Trip hop? Isn’t Stegzy a hairy die hard Prog fan?”. Indeed, but sometimes, with every record collection, you find a “loved genre” busting album or band.  Faithless are one of those bands.
A sampler compilation of a variety of European artists which I received for free when buying some forgettable obscure music during the end of my exploration of the European Darkfolk genre.
Stegzy's Music Project 
Later: Later Lounge & Serve Chilled 1 & 2[#660, 661, 662 & 663]
by stegzyIn the year 2000, the internet was fledgling and untrustworthy and magazines were still a thing. While wanting to attract the vast untapped market of the non-sex obsessed laid back single male twenty something professional demographic, some magazine publishers chucked buckets of cash at producing magazines aimed at them.
Yes, FHM was a thing but that was more laddish than most men felt comfortable with reading in public, with covers often boardering on the pornographic. Esquire was often too sophisticated – aimed at those confident in their presense and appearance. Empire was just about films and GQ had that metrosexual vibe that just didnt appeal to a lot of heteronormative types. Later bridged the gap – stylish, hip, with a cheeky undertone of implied sauce. It was the reading matter for gents who just wanted to stay in touch with what was cool in the world and how to portray that coolness without looking like a catalogue model or an overtly sculpted waxwork with clearly coded sexuality markers.
I loved Later. It appealed to me. I still have copies of every edition of the magazine mouldering in my loft along. It spoke to men like me and offered a guiding hand in the puzzling world of business, style and culture. It’s sad that the publication ended and more sad that nothing really replaced it. Sadly, it seems, people don’t read magazines the way they did preferring social media, websites, podcasts and Substacks instead
Perhaps the most prized possession from this time of my life along with the magazines themselves, are the free CDs that came with the publications. Two Serve Chilled volumes were released over the lifetime of the magazine, with two Later Lounge volumes.
The CDs were compilations of cool, hip music from across the ages, that would delight and provide the owner with that sense of “Hey I listen to cool hip quality music”. It was the kind of music you could pop on at a dinner party or perhaps after the night out at the club to impress that young lady you had brought back to the pad – stylishly decorated of course thanks to the guidance from the magazine .
Later: The Later Lounge Volume 1 [#660]
Later Lounge Volume 1 latched onto that late nineties/early noughties 60’s revival vibe heralded by the likes of Oceans Eleven, Austin Powers and the remastering of old Michael Caine films. Not a great hit with me, I was far too dirty old goth by this time, but there was some Herbie Hancock, who’s music had already passed my ears on yet another Compilation cassete/CD conversion, the erroneously named Seventies Shit.
If ever I wanted to out hipster Hipster Nick, I’d whack this on, put on a cravat and moan about “bloody beatniks” and now you too can pretend to be a lounge lizard by playing the entire playlist via the magic of Youtube below 🙂
Later: The Later Lounge Volume 2 [#661]
Later Lounge Volume 2 came some months later. I think possibly after Serve Chilled but definately after Later Lounge 1 and Serve Chilled 2. I think by this point Later, as a magazine, had become a little flaky. Not as stylish as it once was, perhaps the chaps in the office had been told there and then that the magazine’s days were numbered. Either way, I felt then that there wasn’t as much thought put into this particular compilation. However, with more mature ears, I can now appreciate fully what sort of vibe they were trying to create.
If you fancied pretending to be some 1970’s caberet club owner with your over priced cigars, chest hair and ladykiller white shoes – you know the kind of way you wouldn’t have dressed to impress in the year 2000 – driving through the rain soaked streets of a cosmopolitan and exotic city like say….Bradford (Detroit being too far away)…in your vinyl roof Ford Cortina Mk1 (1973 Oldsmobiles are too big for UK roads)….then this is the compilation for you.
Later: Serve Chilled Volume 1 [#662]
Serve Chilled Volume 1 became the soundtrack to the early noughties for me. I had multiple copies made to play on my car stereo to accompany long car journeys to and from Yorkshire and I also had it ripped to MP3 when I got my Creative Jukebox 2. I cannot politely express how much I loved this compilation and still do.
A soundtrack to every summer trip to Wales, Brighton, Yorkshire and beyond with Mrs Gnomepants v1.0 who, I hope, reads this and remembers the music as well as I do.
Later: Serve Chilled Volume 2 [#663]
Finally the December 2000 edition carried Volume 2 of the Serve Chilled compilations. Blissful audio earwashes to carry away the winter chills and return memories of warm summers in Ibiza. However I wasn’t an Ibiza kind of youth prefering more sedate trips to Wales over roudy lads weeks away getting STDs, drunk and regrettable tattoos so this just makes me think of driving through Snowdonia.
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1999 2000 Chill out compilations Memories Sleazecore Various Artists