Talk:Neofolk

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Archives
March 2005 – March 2006

Contents 1 Changes 2 Von Thronstahl 3 Neoclassical vs. Neoclassicistic 4 Citing sources and External links 5 Band lists 6 "Folk music-inspired" and "Typical instruments: Folk instruments"? 7 Origins 8 Misguided Critics? 9 Markus Wolff

[edit] Changes

Could someone who knows more than I do (read: anything) about the band Changes go and edit their article? I get the impression that they're sort of important, and at any rate there's definitely more to say about them than that pathetic little stub that's there. Thanks for any help you can give! Cantara 06:01, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Read some information about the band and you do it? That is what wiki is for. And changes was not known by many until the 90's when Moynihan got them some exposure. Yes they were making music in the late 60's but no one knew of them until the 90's after the emergence of neofolk. Thus they were never considered major players in this scene. Fleischbox

Alright, alright. I assumed that they were well-known, since when I saw them perform it seemed like everyone was familiar with them except me. Obviously if I do read anything about them I'll add it, but I was operating on the assumption that there were people out there who were knowledgable already. Cantara 21:16, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Don't let Fleisch discourage you. He's just a grumpy displaced kraut! I created a little Robert N. Taylor stub per your suggestion and will get around to updating the Changes page here in time. :bloodofox: 06:42, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

I've since updated the stub into a more informative article, although it could still use some more work. :bloodofox: 14:44, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Von Thronstahl

Certain (usually anonymous users) keep adding him to the artist links, and others usually Bloodofox delete him (which i have no problem with, i'm just noting). What's going on with this exactly? I've heard him on a few neofolk based online radio stations and know that it's not unusual to see him connected to the scene via popular neofolk based websites like Fluxeuropa, but i'm personally not super familiar with his music myself so I can't make a judgement call. I'm wondering if this semi-edit war doesn't go back to the question "what makes up neofolk". Can the term Neofolk be a catch all for styles like martial and neo-classical or is it strictly now, only, connected to bands (or rather, as the case may be, specific albums) that are closely folk instrumental? Just curious.--Adrift* 04:15, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

The user (it appears to be a single person) who keeps adding Von Thronstahl to the list never gives a reason as to why it should be there. Von Thronstahl is definitely martial music and even rock music but very questionably neofolk, I'd say. There's a few tracks that approach synthetic folk instrumentation but, really, it belongs here less than Der Blutharsch does - Their obvious initial inspiration. The very term "neofolk" implies folk instrumentation. There's the association of other genres, which we mention here, but the term is most often used to describe folk music of this vein. Being pretty familiar with their body of work and even having heavily contributed to the little Von Thronstahl Wikipedia article, I'd personally say that Von Thronstahl have more "rock" songs than anything approaching this sort of music. :bloodofox: 07:46, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Some of the earliest material (pre-Imperium Internum EP's and such, though Imperium Internum is partly neofolk as well) by Von Thronstahl was undoubtely neofolk, but, you are right, their later material is almost without exceptions martial music or military pop. 80.216.158.20 22:47, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Neoclassical vs. Neoclassicistic

I checked the links in this article and found a little term problem. In the english wikipedia, neoclassical means neoclassicistic... but that's wrong. There is a difference between these genres. Neoclassical is an outgrowth of the music of Dead Can Dance and In The Nursery in the late '80s. It's modern classical... or freestyle classical. That's not the same like neoclassicism... --Menorrhea 02:31, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

I think the terms are overloaded. In neofolk/martial/industrial/etc. circles, "neoclassical" usually means music that uses instrumentation typical of classical music (violins, pianos, etc.), and is broadly neoclassicist in terms of subject matter and style (atmospheric; themes of past glory; album covers are often ancient ruins; etc.). Groups like Arditi, A Challenge of Honour, etc. are frequently described as "neoclassical" in reviews and interviews. So basically I think we should clarify this at neoclassical, to make clear that the term means different things to different subcultures. --Delirium 00:40, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Citing sources and External links

can someone who has either;

• Diesel, Andreas und Dr. Gerten, Dieter: Looking for Europe - Neofolk und Hintergründe., Zeltingen-Rachtig 2005, ISBN 3936878-02-1

or

• Speit, Andreas u.a. (Hrsg.): Ästhetische Mobilmachung: Rechtsextreme Tendenzen in der Dark Wave- und Neofolkszene., Münster 2002, ISBN 3897718049

possibly check out WP:CITE and add some references to the article? it would do a lot to to increasing its credability. also, with Wikipedia:External links and WP:NOT in mind, are all the bands and zines in the external links section notable enough to be mentioned? seems like it could do with a bit of a prune to me --MilkMiruku 18:33, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

It's probably worth noting that this article was around before Looking For Europe was published and was, at that time, very similar to its present form despite the book release. However, I've read very negative things about Ästhetische Mobilmachung and I can personally tell you that any contribution I've made to this article most certainly was not derived from it. :bloodofox: 22:34, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

fair enough then. can you think of any book that could have info we could reference on the article? --MilkMiruku 23:07, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

I can't, unfortunately. It would be nice to have some solid references for this article but it would be difficult to attribute links to anything else but zines, many of which no longer exist. I suppose we could use more interview quotes as well for reference. :bloodofox: 15:17, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Political controversies concerning Neofolk are very intense in Germany. "Ästhetische Mobilmachung" (pub.2002) is an extreme-left-wing-orientated book which tries to link the genre and it's protagonists to Neofascism by citing real or alleged connections to the Right and Far Right. It is fair to say that this is obviously (to anyone familiar with the genre) a very onesided, polemical, "accusing" book. Though most of the facts are sound, they are being presented in a distorting and questionable manner. Contradicting facts are being left out. "Looking For Europe", which appeared three years later (2005), also a german publication, is a well-researched "history" of the genre written by two "insiders" from a liberal/ neutral point of view. I would personally recommend it, and hope there will be an English translation soon.--Maya23 11:20, 2 January 2007 (CET)

[edit] Band lists

It's not encyclopedic to create a list of links to band websites and festivals for a genre's External Links section. If they are notable, they should be linked to within Wikipedia. A lot of these linsk should be removed, and if no one has any major objection, I wil do it shortly. WesleyDodds 05:34, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Feel free. I'll go through what you've changed and we'll go from there. :bloodofox: 09:34, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

I've removed most of them. Band and label links on a genre page constitute promotion (they should appear on the pages of the bands and labels themselves) and foreign-language links have no place on the English Wiki. I left the English fanzines and one of the festivals because they might be informative (haven't checked them out yet), but the External Links should be exclusively about information regarding the specific topic of the article. Something like an online article about the genre would be a good example of an acceptable link. WesleyDodds 04:29, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Folk music-inspired" and "Typical instruments: Folk instruments"?

What is that? Isn't it just in the last few years there has been some notable references to traditional folk music? Weren't earlier neo-folk rather inspired by folk rock and post-punk, and rather used acoustic guitars and samplers as main instruments than traditional folk instruments? 80.216.158.20 22:52, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Origins

Does anyone agree with my opinion that post-punk or punk should be added as genre origins? Most early neofolk bands (except Changes) had roots in punk or post-punk bands, and I'd say the pre-1990 neofolk and post-punk/goth shares a lot of similiarities.

Yeah, that seems reasonable. Death in June, for example, basically was a post-punk band until the mid-80s, and retained post-punk elements until at least the late 80s. --Delirium 05:37, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Misguided Critics?

i'm not going to change the article right now, but... well, using julius evola and similar racist figures as inspirational source does, imho, count as flirting with fascism. critics who note that don't seem "misguided" to me. opinions other then "you're a fucking leftist"? please! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.124.179.55 (talk) 12:46, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

I've removed the text because it refers to some specific compilations mainly surrounding the VAWS camp and is hardly representative of the genre itself. I am not sure why you were expecting such a harsh response. :bloodofox: 16:23, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

There should probably be something (neutral and referenced) about it at some point though, because it's been a big controversy at times, especially in the German-language press. Death in June in particular is almost constantly battling legal problems, e.g. concert cancellations in both Switzerland and the U.S., and the indexing of "Rose Clouds of Holocaust". I seem to recall Strength Through Joy having some problems also. --Delirium 16:32, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

There's actually only a handful of artists in the genre who have encountered any sort of problems and those are Death In June, Blood Axis and, in the past, Sol Invictus. I think I've recorded most of the issues that have occurred with Death In June on the DIJ Wikipedia article, so there we can mine any sources we may need. I don't know anything about STJ having some problems in the past but the name probably did cause some issues. Most of the controversy surrounds the martial industrial genre. After looking it over, the whole article needs to be expanded and updated with references and I will do so in time. :bloodofox: 16:38, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Yeah I agree Martial Industrial is a lot more controversial. I'll see if I can dig up some source, but I thought I remembered some non-Nazi-related controversy with neofolk also, mostly over its Eurocentrism, which some left-wing German critics accuse of being ethnocentric/nationalistic/volkish. Belborn also got criticized for appearing on one of the VAWS compilations I think. --Delirium 17:23, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Replying to my own post, this (from die tageszeitung) is somewhat representative of the common attack pieces. First sentence of the subtitle: "A right-wing publisher organizes today in Oberhausen a Neofolk-festival". In addition to the usual criticisms of VAWS, it quotes a university professor who says Eis und Licht "tries to open the neofolk and darkwave scenes for right-wing thoughts". And of course that Ästhetische Mobilmachung book is basically an attack piece like this expanded to book length. I don't agree with most of these attacks, but it's a big part of contemporary German cultural debate, so I think we should cover it here. --Delirium 17:34, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

I've wondered about this before, regarding Eis & Licht. I can only assume that the label is attacked so much because it is a German label. I would say that the label is actually one of the most uncontroversial labels dealing in that sort of music, even in Germany, making such reports all the more funny. :bloodofox: 18:05, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Markus Wolff

Wolff, the man behind Waldteufel, wrote an essay about neofolk music and related genres in 2001 for Esoterra Magazine entitled Ancestral Voices: Heathen Music in Germany: [1] It's full of well researched information and is a treasure trove of sources regarding the genre's association with Germanic neopaganism. Since we're lacking sources and we really need them, this should help out. :bloodofox: 17:31, 23 October 2007 (UTC)