"The single most significant body of solo acoustic guitar music to be published in the 21st century so far" - Boomkat

"Solo Acoustic Guitar music to get excited about" - Variety

"I struggle to recall any recent comps that glide together as seamlessly as these Tompkins Square projects, and "Volume Three" is no exception. Contemplative, intricate, a simple but ornate school of folk that hangs effortlessly between the ancient and the avant-garde . . . I could listen to this stuff all day." - John Mulvey, UNCUT

"Tompkins Square's Imaginational Anthem series has not just unearthed the continuing steel-string tradition, but made it relevant." - eMusic

"Simply put, these are all essential recordings, they offer solid evidence of how the tradition continues from the '60s to the present day in the same way that albums by Fahey, Kottke, Crandell, Lang, John Renbourn, Bert Jansch, and countless others picked up on the lineages of the previous decades from folk, blues, prison songs and mountain and church music foundations, and brought it forth, shifted and changed and added and subtracted. This box is the latest entry in the long long logbook. Get it." - 4.5 / 5 stars, All Music Guide

Imaginational Anthem Vols 1-3 box set - 4 1/2 stars All Music Guide :

Quietly but quickly, New York City's Tompkins Square label is amassing a formidable catalog of outsider music. They've taken their time but it's been worth every glorious minute. They've reissued long-gone yet seminal works such as Robbie Basho's Venus in Cancer and Harry Taussig's 1965 private-press album Fate Is Only Once, as well as the incredible multiple-disc box set of vintage 78 and field recordings called People Take Warning: Murder Ballads & Songs of Disaster 1913-1938, in a killer package with an introduction by Tom Waits. In addition to reissues -- there are sets by brilliant and celebrated but widely under-the-radar jazz visionaries such as guitar wizard Bern Nix (best known for his work with Ornette Coleman's Prime Time), pianist Ran Blake, and saxophonist Charles Gayle. Mostly, however, Tompkins Square has become the Takoma Records of the 21st century, issuing album after album from lesser known but legendary visionaries such as Peter Walker, Charlie Louvin, and Spencer Moore to name just three. Finally, the imprint has begun an aggressive campaign of documenting and reissuing rare recordings -- and new ones -- by younger players whose names are whispered about in awe in the underground communities where limited-edition CD and vinyl works are de rigeur; namely those by multi-instrumentalist Shawn David McMillen and guitarist James Blackshaw. The latter has been a bit of a coup: Tompkins Square has introduced the British musician's work to American ears by releasing his brilliant Cloud of Unknowing in 2007 and reissuing his catalog.

One of the great lynchpins in the Tompkins Square approach to introducing its artists to hipsters everywhere (as well as fans of great acoustic music) is its Imaginational Anthems series. This slipcase box contains the first three volumes in the series, released between 2005 and 2008. Assembled and annotated by label boss Josh Rosenthal, these volumes are as wonderfully and carefully assembled as any of the early Takoma samplers. He puts these beautiful slabs together in such a way that the listener is transported aurally and "imaginationally" into a world where time ceases to exist, and sound is simply the reach of space itself. No dimensions, it's all around you, through you, and over you. Volume one contained works by Jack Rose, Taussig, the late Sandy Bull, John Fahey, Nix, Max Ochs, Kaki King, Gyan and Terry Riley (yes, that Terry Riley), Suni McGrath, and others. It is a startling, surprising collection of very rare and seminal tracks by fabled legends of yore, unknowns musical alchemists and, in King's case, a young visionary, but it the disc holds together beautifully, casting its spell over the listener profoundly and completely. The second installment in the series brought us lauded latecomers like Jose Gonzalez, Blackshaw, and Christina Carter, and placed that music in the context of its architects: Basho, Brit folk iconoclast Michael Chapman, Peter Lang, Rose, Sharron Krauss, and more. It's a stunner in its labyrinthine construction and Rosenthal's selections are poignant and precise. Finally, the third volume in the series that concludes this box -- keep an eye out, will be more -- is a wild selection of the near mythical. There are cuts by underground five-string banjoist George Stavis, guitarist Mark Fossom, and Richard Crandell (whose recordings are coming back into print after decades hidden from view) as well as players that are either well known or should be, such as Basho disciple Steffen Basho-Junghans, McMillen, R. Keenan Lawler (a monster resonator guitar picker), Matt Baldwin, Cian Nugent (no relation to Terrible Ted), Ben Reynolds, and Greg Davis, to name a few. Simply put, these are all essential recordings, they offer solid evidence of how the tradition continues from the '60s to the present day in the same way that albums by Fahey, Kottke, Crandell, Lang, John Renbourn, Bert Jansch, and countless others picked up on the lineages of the previous decades from folk, blues, prison songs and mountain and church music foundations, and brought it forth, shifted and changed and added and subtracted. This box is the latest entry in the long long logbook. Get it.

April 19th, 2008 is Record Store Day. Hundreds of independent record stores across the US will celebrate the indie spirit with their customers.
NYC's Tompkins Square label is saluting Record Store Day by offering up a copy of the Grammy-nominated box set "People Take Warning! Murder Ballads & Disaster Songs, 1913-1938" - Autographed by Tom Waits. Waits wrote an Introduction for the box set.

Starting April 19th 2008, fans can enter-to-win only at the following record store locations :

Vintage Vinyl, St. Louis
4000 Holes, Spokane WA
Landlocked, Bloomington IN
Dimple, Sacramento CA
Bull Moose, Maine
Rasputin, SF/Berkeley CA
Reckless, Chicago
Everyday Music, Portland OR
Lou's Records, Encinitas CA
Rockabilly's, Utica MI
Criminal Records, Atlanta
Shake It, Cincinnati
Grimeys, Nashville
Circle Sky Records, Atlanta GA
Permanent Records, Chicago
Red Scroll Records, Wallingford CT
Flat Black and Circular, E Lansing MI
Sound It Out, Traverse CIty MI
Oblong Books, Millerton NY
Rockitman, Flagstaff AZ
Mojo Books and Music, Tampa
Slow Train Music, Salt lake City UT
52.5 Records , Charleston SC
Horizon, Greenville SC
Ear XTacy, Louisville
Euclid Record, St. Louis
Waterloo, Austin
Disc Exchange, Knoxville
Music Millennium, Portland OR
Park Ave, Orlando
Harvest, Asheville NC
Stinkweeds, AZ
Vinyl Fever, Tampa
Fingerprints, Long Beach CA
Kief's, Lawrence KS
Decatur CDs, Decatur GA
Twist And Shout, Denver
Record Exchange Boise
Electric Fetus, Minneapolis
Uncle Sam's, Miami
Record Archive, Rochester NY
Sound Fix, Brooklyn NY
Finders Records, OH

"Peter Walker was actually a bigger influence on my acoustic playing than John Fahey or Robbie Basho."
- Ben Chasny, Six Organs of Admittance

Peter Walker came up in the Cambridge MA and Greenwich Village folk scenes of the Sixties. He recorded two albums for the Vanguard label in the late Sixties in a style best described as American folk-raga. He studied with Ravi Shankar and Ali Akbar Khan, and was Dr. Timothy Leary's musical director, organizing music for the LSD advocate's "celebrations."
A Raga for Peter Walker was released by Tompkins Square in 2006, featuring four new tracks from Peter along with original, previously unreleased compositions by revered contemporary guitarists Steffen Basho-Junghans, James Blackshaw, Greg Davis, Shawn David McMillen, Thurston Moore, and Jack Rose.
In recent years, Walker has developed an intense interest in flamenco guitar and, through regular trips to Spain, has been accepted into flamenco’s exclusive musical elite. Peter states,
"The music on this CD was reviewed and acclaimed in Andalucia by some of the old guard who have encouraged its release. With its roots in ancient East Indian music, Flamenco has influenced much of the world's music. These Spanish-inspired pieces reflect my passion for this musical rubric."
Selection #: TSQ 1752

1. Cante Gitano (Gypsy Song)
2. Flor de Noche (Night Flower)
3. Caminar en la Tarde (Afternoon Walk)
4. Manitas Juntos (Hands Together)
5. Cueve de Pepe (Pepe's Cave)
6. Sacromonte (Sacred Mountain)
7. Eco de mi Alma (Echo of My Soul)
8. Poema de Amar (Love Poem)
9. Jaleador (Spirit Caller)
10. Soleo (Alone)
11. Cante en Medio (Song in A Major)
12. Por Rosa (Song in E Major)
13. Grandita (Song From Granada)
14. Bailarcito (Little Dance)


PETER WALKER TOUR DATES

Wed APRIL 09 GIRON, CAFE EL CERCLE (Blackmusic Fest.)
Thu 10 LLEIDA, CAFE EL TEATRE
Fri 11 CASTELLON, CASINO ANTIGO
Sat 12 MADRID, LA CASA DE LOS JACINTOS
Wed 16 LONDON, CECIL SHARP HOUSE W/ JAMES BLACKSHAW
Thu 17 Freakzone Session 1.30pm
BRISTOL, THE CROFT W/ JOHN RENBOURN & ROBIN WILLIAMSON
Fri 18 BBC World Service session
Sat 19 DUBLIN, BOOM BOOM ROOM
Sun 20 CORK, THE WHISKY
Wed 23 EDINBURGH, PLEASANCE THEATRE W/ JOHN RENBOURN & ROBIN WILLIAMSON
Thu 24 NEWCASTLE, MORDERN TOWER
Fri 25 MANCHESTER, ST MARGARET'S CHURCH
Sat 26 NORTHAMPTON, THE FISHMARKET
MAY 1 TORONTO, ON Over The Top Festival
MAY 3 Hamilton ON@ Casbah
MAY 20 FAYETTEVILLE NY, LA CENA
MAY 21 MONTREAL, QC, LA SALA ROSSA
MAY 23 UPPER JAY, NY THE RECOVERY LOUNGE, UPPER JAY ARTS CENTER
MAY 24 PORTLAND ME @ ONE LONGFELLOW SQ
MAY 25 MARTHA"S VINEYARD @ CHE's LOUNGE

Coming off a round of year-end praise for James Blackshaw's 2007 release, The Cloud of Unknowing, the Tompkins Square label will release four catalog titles by the acclaimed UK guitarist/composer on March 25th, 2008.

The reissues will comprise out-of-print works previously only available as tiny private runs of CDRs and LPs. They include Celeste, Sunshrine, Lost Prayers And Motionless Dances, and White Goddess.

The Cloud of Unknowing was selected as a Top 50 Album of the Year by Pitchfork and Wire Magazine, a Top 10 Album of the Year by WNYC, and was hailed in the New York Times on December 31st by Jon Pareles, who said, "Blackshaw plays 12-string acoustic guitar, picking endlessly circling, intertwining arpeggios: stately, tolling ones on the lower strings and faster ones, verging on tremolo, up above. Yet what usually emerges from the welter of notes is not bustle but tranquility. The music has the same contemplative scope that turns countless tiny daubs into a Monet water lily."

James toured extensively with Jose Gonzalez in 2007. He will return to the U.S. in the Spring in support of his next studio album.

On April 8th 2008, Tompkins Square will release Imaginational Anthem Vol. 3, the third in a series of compilations devoted to acoustic guitar mavericks past and present. The label will also release all three volumes together as a box set on the same date.

As with Volumes 1 & 2, the new album features extraordinary young talents such as Cian Nugent (Ireland), Ben Reynolds (UK), and Shawn David McMillen (Austin, TX) alongside unsung heroes from decades past, such as banjo master George Stavis, who recorded an album for Vanguard in the 60's; Richard Crandell, whose rare private press works will hopefully now be brought to light; and Mark Fosson, whose lost 1977 Takoma album was recently issued.

Released in October 2005, Imaginational Anthem was featured on NPR’s All Things Considered, and received 4 stars from Uncut ("Entrancing"), All Music Guide ("Masterful") and Mojo ("Groundbreaking"). Rolling Stone’s David Fricke wrote, "The history and beauty here speaks for themselves, at the perfect volume." Jon Pareles wrote in The New York Times, "Old and new, the music meditates on blues, Appalachian music, raga and ragtime, and traditions are transfigured by a deep love for the sonority of the acoustic guitar."

Released in June 2006, Imaginational Anthem Volume 2 opened with the gorgeous "River of Heaven" by Tompkins Square recording artist James Blackshaw, and featured unreleased recordings by legends such as Michael Chapman, Fred Gerlach, Billy Faier, Peter Lang, and Robbie Basho. The album was supported by a national Arthur Magazine-sponsored U.S. tour with Blackshaw, Sharron Kraus and Sean Smith. Pitchfork wrote, "(IA2) pairs some of the leading lights of the current avant-folk subculture with unearthed vintage folk rarities."

Tompkins Square has been steadily mining the genre known as "American Primitive Guitar” with a string of acclaimed releases over the past two years, including reissues of seminal '60's albums by Robbie Basho and Harry Taussig; an album by three young guitarists from the Bay Area, Berkeley Guitar; The Cloud of Unknowing by 25-year old UK trailblazer James Blackshaw; Catfish, the debut album from Austin multi-instrumentalist Shawn David McMillen, and a tribute album for '60's-era Vanguard recording artist Peter Walker, entitled A Raga For Peter Walker.

Full Album Stream: http://www.imaginationalanthem.com/

Track listing for Imaginational Anthem Vol. 3 :
1. Richard Crandell - Zocalo
2. Ben Reynolds - Here Toucheth Blues
3. Greg Davis - Sleep Architecture
4. Nathan Salsburg - Bold Ruler's Joys
5. Steffen Basho-Junghans - Blue Mountain Raga II
6. Cian Nugent - When the Snow Melts And Floats Downstream
7. Matt Baldwin - Sean Cycle
8. Mark Fosson - Another Fine Day
9. George Stavis – Goblins
10. R. Keenan Lawler - High Tower Bells For Loren Connors
11. Shawn David McMillen - Texarkana 1971

Tompkins Square Label has received two Grammy nominations !

Charlie Louvin's self-titled album is nominated in the Best Traditional Folk category. 'People Take Warning! Murder Ballads & Disaster Songs 1913-1938' is nominated in the Best Historical category.