Presented by BlRR and Helmet Room. Recorded on San Juan Island of the Pacific Northwest, Fortune & Folly is the fitting second volume of Birch Book. Assuming the allegorical emblems of The Wheel of Fortune and The Traveling Fool, Fortune & Folly distill the introspections of a perennial rambler reckoning ‘the Bitter and the Bliss’ of The Road Less Traveled. Drifting away from the overtly psychedelic, medieval, and soporific atmosphere which typified In Gowan Ring, B’ee displays a more organic, individualistic approach to songwriting. Fortune & Folly blends elements of idiosyncratic folk-pop and outcast-country with brooding layers of sound and sense, yielding a spectral ethereality in a captivating chiaroscuro thick with the visionary allusions of a haunted wanderer.
About Birch Book:
Variously labeled 'Wyrd', 'Psychedelic' or 'Avant Folk', In Gowan Ring extend roots into poetic-folk traditions while cultivating an inimitable, self-attuned writing style that prefigured the ‘New-Psyche-Folk’ movement.
As poet, pilgrim, progenitor of wyrd-folk and maestro of In Gowan Ring, Jon Michael B’eirth (otherwise B'ee) has developed a homespun sonic tapestry with peculiar richness of vision; recording over ten full length albums and performing throughout North America & Europe in veritable itinerant fashion amidst a dozen years against the grain.
As well as composing the original material for Birch Book & In Gowan Ring, B’ee collects renditions of traditional songs and builds many of the acoustic instruments featured in performances and recordings such as the recent ‘lyre-guitar’ & ‘leaf cittern’. Though largely self-taught, he has didactically studied the music of the Trouvères and Troubadours, the counterpoint of the High Renaissance, and modern orchestration.