Compiled by Bob Stanley to document the acid folk scene, "Gather In The Mushrooms" was first issued in 2004 on Sanctuary as a CD-only release; it proved popular enough for a sequel entitled "Early Morning Hush" two years later. This new edition of "Gather In The Mushrooms" contains the cream of both long-deleted compilations with a few additions - C.O.B., Roy Harper, Fotheringay - that weren't available to Sanctuary at the time. Though they aren't traditional, these songs have an authenticity of their own, an autumnal atmosphere and a naivety which proved influential in the 00s neo-folk boom (Devendra Banhart, Joanna Newsom, Alasdair Roberts, Tuung et al) but impossible to replicate. For many of these acts at the end of the 60s, folk music and the hippy world that surrounded them was a way of life, a way of opting out from the Vietnam war, Angry Brigade and three-day-week early 70s. Anne Briggs lived in a caravan in Suffolk, Shelagh McDonald lived in a tent, Vashti Bunyan eschewed electricity; they weren't part-timers. Listening to "Gather In The Mushrooms", we are transported to a time when no one used the term post-modernist. It may not have resonated with dyed-in-the wool political folkies, but over five decades later this music sounds very evocative of an England of yore - not necessarily one of poachers and pedlars, but one of long-haired youths in tie-dye T-shirts, bikers and hippies, acoustic guitars played in white stone cottages. Groups such as Midwinter and Oberon made primitive, privately recorded folk albums; today they sound as distant and mystical as the field recordings of Alan Lomax. The sincerity and folk knowledge of a group like Forest becomes irrelevant once you hear something as eerie and evocative as 'Graveyard'. Home-made, homely, warm as soup or chilling as a hoar frost, this is music of innocence and rare beauty.

1. Magnet & Paul Giovanni – Corn Rigs
2. Trader Horne – Morning Way
3. Oberon – Nottanum Town
4. Forest – Graveyard
5. Midwinter – The Skater
6. Fotheringay – Winter Winds
7. Heron – Lord And Master
8. Bridget St John – Fly High
9. Mellow Candle – Sheep Season
10. Stone Angel – The Bells Of Dunwich
11. Keith Christmas – Forest And The Shore
12. Fresh Maggots – Rosemary Hill
13. Anne Briggs – Fine Horseman
14. Barry Dransfield – The Werewolf
15. Roy Harper – Another Day
16. Vashti Bunyan – Window Over The Bay
17. COB (Clive's Original Band) – Eleven Willows
18. Comus – The Herald