I've realised lately there is something very pastoral about the music that is warming my soul. And it's not just the thought of a bushy beard pash from one of the boys in the bands below.
For me, Pastoral Rock started a few years ago with, MIDLAKE and Roscoe. That earthy, pioneering feel, that made you start wishing you were on that reality TV show where people are forced to live like its 1891 and you made bread every morning from wheat you threshed yourself.
Midlake- Roscoe film clip
Then BAND OF HORSES , took me and shook me into a colonial frenzy. With their southern and country rock, I was running off to join the wild bush horses (the album was worth a thousand pounds).
Band of Horses: Ben Bridwell, I will always love thee.
More recently FLEET FOXES stole my heart and ran with it into the Ragged Woods with their Appalachian Folk harmonies, tales of meadowlarks and 9.0 rating on Pitchfork. But the Fleet Foxes are not hippies, oh no. Don’t let the beards fool you, there is no patchouli on these boys.
Fleet Foxes: Robin Pecknold, I will cheat on Ben Bridwell with you, I promise.
There is the also Foxies stablemates on Sub Pop Records- BLITZEN TRAPPER to add to the collection of bucolic inspired musical journeys on horseback, with their fourth full-length release Furr a follow up to 2007’s Wild Mountain Nation, with songs like Thrashing the Wheat and Country Caravan, you can smell the rural love.
There are others too. It’s hard to go past IRON & WINE with Samuel Beam’s incredible beard supporting what have been dubbed “grubby campfire hymns”, and HORSE FEATHERS Portland get-up started in 2004 by Justin Ringle which has expanded to include, wait for it- girls.
Horse Feathers: yes, that's a girl in a pastoral rock band.
Below: Samuel Beam, Iron & Wine. I'd go him if Ben and Robin were taken.