New Weird America

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New Weird America describes a psychedelic folk musical movement of the 2000s. The term is generally believed to have been coined by David Keenan in the August 2003 issue of The Wire, following the Brattleboro Free Folk Festival organized by Matt Valentine. It is a play on Greil Marcus's phrase "Old Weird America" as used in his book Invisible Republic, which deals with the lineage connecting the pre-war folk performers on Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music to Bob Dylan and his milieu. The musical style described as New Weird America (NWA) is mainly derived from folk and psychedelic groups of the 1960s and 1970s, including American performers Holy Modal Rounders and English group Pentangle, but it also finds inspiration in such disparate sources as heavy metal, free jazz, electronic music, noise music, tropicália, and early- and mid-20th century American folk music. Another primary inspiration is outsider music, often played by technically naïve (and often socially estranged) musicians, such as The Shaggs, Roky Erickson, and Jandek. Some NWA artists have even garnered criticism for projecting an image of mental instability, exploiting the purity and naïveté of outsider status.

Other genre classifications of similar period and aesthetics are psych folk, acid folk, and freak folk.

Many works of the genre are issued in small editions and distributed independently. The music has been covered extensively by L.A.-based Arthur Magazine, which ran in-depth pieces on Devendra Banhart, Joanna Newsom, Animal Collective, and Six Organs of Admittance, released the definitive New Weird America compilation The Golden Apples of the Sun, and curated the ArthurFest (2005) and ArthurBall (2006) and events, featuring a variety of artists from the movement.

New Weird America is not a unified movement; it is a term of convenience used by journalists. Many bands labeled as NWA do not identify with the movement but have been associated with it by the press.

Some bands and musicians classified with this movement include: