“Forest and the Shore” by Keith Christmas is remarkable. In his essay for Gather in the Mushrooms, compiler, author and Saint Etienne member Bob Stanley says it is “as evocative as its title. The song has a deeply wooded sound, like a cross between Serge Gainsbourg’s “Ballade de Melody Nelson” and Ralph Vaughan Williams.” To this can be added the brooding, dramatic melancholy of Scott Walker’s “The Seventh Seal.”
Despite the grandeur of “Forest and the Shore” – and the astounding Richard Thompson-esque, Tom Verlaine-predicting guitar solo taking it to its close – Gather in the Mushrooms: The British Folk Underground 1969-1975 is ostensibly an 18-track collection of British folk recordings. Or, more accurately, folk-rooted or…

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