Created from the collaboration of Cold Spring and Wowen Wheat Whispers (a legal download service of folk and related music reachable at www.wovenwheatwhispers.co.uk) JOHN BARLEYCORN REBORN is a comprehensive compilation of modern British folk music. The double compilation contains 33 different bands/tracks but there's also a downloadable third part for whom who bought the double CD or downloaded it, with further 33 songs. It's hard to describe well what you can find into this compilation because each band, even if they could be filed as folk, give their personal interpretation of folk music. You can find echoes of classic folk music (with flutes, female vocals and strings), folk rock (I know a couple of bands active in the 70's because my brother had some of their tapes: The Pentangle and Steeleye Span and some of these remembered those two) but also experimental, psychedelic and post punk influences (check Clive Powell, English Eretic and While Angels Watch). There are bands known to the neo-folk people thanks to two Tony Wakeford's projects (Sol Invictus and The Triple Tree) and Martyn Bates. I appreciated a lot the whole atmosphere and the way the bands approached the sounds and the themes. You must know that beside the music, JOHN BARLEYCORN REBORN is a project really linked to English people's roots because John Barleycorn is the character of a traditional folk song. From Wikipedia: "...is a personification of the important cereal crop barley, and of the alcoholic beverages made from it, beer and whisky. In the song, John Barleycorn is represented as suffering attacks, death, and indignities that correspond to the various stages of barley cultivation, such as reaping and malting. Some have interpreted the story of John Barleycorn as representing a pagan practice It has also been suggested that John Barleycorn, or rather an early form of the song, may have been used by the early church in Saxon England to ease the conversion of pagans to Christianity from their native Anglo-Saxon polytheism. The reasoning behind this idea is that John Barleycorn represented the ideology of nature cycles, spirits and the harvest of the pagan religion (and may have represented human sacrifice also) but that the song was Christianized in order to show John Barleycorn as a Christ-like figure. Barleycorn, the personification of the barley, encounters great suffering before succumbing to an unpleasant death. However, as a result of this death bread can be produced; therefore, Barleycorn dies so that others may live. Finally his body will be eaten as the bread. Compare this with the Christian concepts of the Sacrament and of Transubstantiation and it is not difficult to imagine how the song might have been beneficial to Christianity. A popular hymn, "We Plough the Fields and Scatter", is often sung at Harvest Festival to the same tune. As shown above, the point of the tale told by the original versions is twofold: it focuses not only on the death and resurrection of John Barleycorn, but also on Barleycorn's revenge upon the tradesmen who misused him".
Reading this we can understand that the character of John Barleycorn is a multifaceted one with many meanings, from pagan to agricultural. It gathers the life cycle and it help people bonding under his tale.
JOHN BARLEYCORN REBORN is the first project of this kind and other will come. Check the two websites dedicated to the project at www.john-barleycorn-reborn.com and myspace.com/johnbarleycornreborn