The Folk Implosion

A side project that took on an unlikely life of its own, the Folk Implosion is a collaboration between Sebadoh's Lou Barlow and Boston-area songwriter John Davis. While their earliest material was decidedly rooted in the lo-fi movement of the early '90s, their contributions to the soundtrack album for Harmony Korine's 1995 film Kids included the uncharacteristically slinky and serious tune "Natural One," which became a surprise Top 40 hit. The band's style shifted to atmospheric and electronic-tinged grooves similar to their biggest hit on the 1997 album Dare to Be Surprised and added a little more scrappy indie rock back into the mix for their Interscope-released 1999 effort One Part Lullaby. The original lineup splintered and the project went on hiatus until 2021, at which point Barlow and Davis reunited, re-releasing expanded editions of their earlier material and issuing new music like 2022 EP Feel It If You Feel It. After parting ways with Dinosaur Jr. in 1989, Barlow returned to Sebadoh, the loose collective of lo-fi recording aficionados he'd formed a couple of years earlier, and began recording prolifically for the small indie Homestead. Sebadoh's homespun recordings caught the ear of fellow Massachusetts singer/songwriter John Davis, who sent Barlow a tape of his own home recordings. The two began corresponding, and in 1993 they teamed up as the Folk Implosion (their name a smirking play on the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion) and recorded a self-titled, cassette-only album in Davis' house. Its original incarnation was released by the British Chocolate Monk label, and some of the material was issued in the U.S. by Drunken Fish as the 7" EP Walk Through This World with the Folk Implosion the following year. The band subsequently signed with the Communion label and recorded a mini-album titled Take a Look Inside the Folk Implosion, also in 1994; they followed it with the more experimental, import-only Electric Idiot EP in 1995. 1995 was also the year Barlow and Davis were recruited to contribute music to the film Kids. More than half of the songs on the soundtrack album were Folk Implosion tunes, and there was also one song by the Deluxx Folk Implosion, an alternate incarnation where Barlow and Davis occasionally teamed up with Deluxx members Bob Fay (also of Sebadoh) and Mark Perretta. Kids attracted considerable controversy over its raw portrayals of New York teenage street life, and that buzz may have helped the single "Natural One" catch on at alternative radio. Whatever the reason, the song's slinky bassline and funky drum-machine groove made it quite unlike anything Barlow or Davis had previously been involved with, and it peaked at number 29 on the pop charts in early 1996, enabling Davis to quit his day job as a librarian. Somewhat taken aback by the song's success, London Records (who'd released the soundtrack) attempted to sign the Folk Implosion permanently, but they were reluctant to leave the certainty of Communion for uncharted larger-label waters, and hoped to see whether they could continue their success by doing things on a smaller scale. The group's next album, Dare to Be Surprised, was recorded slowly over the course of a year (due in part to Barlow's commitments with Sebadoh) and released in 1997. A collection of poppy, slightly off-kilter guitar rock with electronic underpinnings recorded on an eight-track, the album received highly positive reviews, but failed to generate a second radio hit for the band. Reconsidering their earlier decision, the Folk Implosion signed a major-label deal with Interscope and released 1999's slickly recorded One Part Lullaby with the label. Davis left the group in 2000 shortly after the release, and Barlow re-assembled a new lineup with latter-day Sebadoh drummer Russ Pollard and guitarist Imaad Wasif. This version of the project released 2003's The New Folk Implosion on Domino Records and appeared as a rock band in the film Laurel Canyon before slipping into hiatus. In 2021, Barlow and Davis reunited as the Folk Implosion, playing a small concert and working on new material. That year they released an expanded edition of Walk Through This World, and the following year they shared brand new music in the form of the Feel It If You Feel It EP. While they readied their first full-length of new material in over 20 years, the band also began re-releasing earlier work, including 2023's Music for KIDS, which compiled all the recordings the duo had made for the 1995 film, some of which had never seen official release.
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