BLOOM & LOREN CONNORS, KATH - Sing The Children Over/Sand In My Shoe

Originally released by Chapter Music in 2008, this is the first of two double disc reissues by extraordinary early-80s folk duo Kath Bloom and Loren Connors. Meeting in 1976 in their hometown of New Haven, CT, Bloom and Connors formed a creative partnership that has haunted psych-folk fans ever since, releasing six albums of fragile, avant-garde folk-blues in miniscule quantities, all of which now change hands for huge sums. At first, Kath would act out monologues while Loren played his free-form guitar, extrapolated from Mississippi Delta and Chicago blues. But while Loren worked on his now-legendary nine-volume series Unaccompanied Acoustic Guitar Improvisations, he and Kaths performances gradually became more song-based. Kath began practicing guitar among the headstones of New Havens Grove Street cemetery, while Lorens idiosyncratic style had been developing since the 1960s. By the early 80s, after self-releasing two limited-edition live albums, the duo were playing occasionally outside of New Haven, and soon Boston independent label Ambiguous Records approached them to record their first studio effort. Acclaimed jazz critic and music historian Nat Hentoff wrote sensitive, insightful liner notes and Sing The Children Over emerged in 1982 and Sand In My Shoe in 1983. The albums mixed traditional folk and blues songs with Kaths originals, revealing Kath to be an accomplished and moving songwriter. It also set up the dynamic template that she and Loren would follow over their remaining recordings -- Kaths fragile voice and subdued finger-picked guitar set against Lorens playing: abstract, skittering, sometimes atonal but always intuitively supportive. Together the duo created a sound almost impossibly emotional and haunting, one unlike anything created before or since. By 1984, however, Kath was married with a young son, and Connors himself was entering a new relationship, so the duo found themselves drifting apart. And now, after almost 25 years, these original recordings are again available to be soaked up, marveled at and relished. Completely remastered, and containing extensive liner notes, original photos and artwork, and a treasure trove of bonus tracks. -Chapter