Kristina Jung is a peculiar woman. Her light-flooded voice tells of gloomy demons in the morning after, the horror of love or the thoughts of a dead fetus in formaldehyde. At the same time, she mocks the cliché of the morbid folk musician.

Her origins are in singer-songwriter folk; in beautiful, blackly romantic melodies. It sounds like folk, like country and sometimes even like classical music, but never like country house romance or staid hippiedom, but rather like urban canyons, walking home at dawn and ironically shrugging her shoulders in the face of the impositions of modern life. Always urban and with a smartness and coolness reminiscent of Joni Mitchell, from whom she also covers a piece (The Priest). And somewhere in the background Michel Foucault is loitering.

Kristina Jung produced her debut album Care & Explosion herself, for four years she realized maximum musical and artistic autonomy: indulgent strings meet shrill synths, the heartbeat of her unborn daughter becomes an electronic soundscape, epic choirs lead us to the altar of a dark basement club. She recorded the album, according to her own statement: "everywhere and under all circumstances. In the bedroom, in the studio, in unheated rehearsal rooms; pregnant in the ninth month, with baby on her back, alone, in the circle of my girlfriends and friends."

Two songs by Kristina Jung have already been released in the cosirecords environment. One is her eerie version of the Heimatschnulze Köhlerliesel from the soundtrack to the anti-homeland film Die Übriggebliebenen. And on the Gruselthon sampler My Universal Hammer she is represented with her cover of Blue Oyster Cult's Godzilla. Now comes Care & Explosion on vinyl in a fold out cover in an edition of 300.

Ghost Folk is a beautiful new album by the number one self-made woman of American singer songwriter folk – Allysen Callery. And it is New England through and through.

Her ninth album in sixteen years (counting the bootlegs) invites us to share the solitude of her writing chambers. Haunting songs lure us into the remoteness of New England, where the Old World meets the New – where myth meets pragmatism. Callery portraits restless ghosts of everyday, some are passersby, and some seem well acquainted regulars. Ghost Folk is not gothic in mode, no collection of murder ballads. The album is eerie through stark simplicity and naked honesty, veiled only by the association the title evokes and by the beautifully arranged soundscapes. Callery meets us up front and yet detached. Her matter of factness contrasts with her surrealism, portraying a world entirely her own.

Unlike most artists of the current folk scene exploring all sorts of Americana, Allysen Callery draws heavily on the British folk revival of the 60s. Her picking style is Anglo-Celtic and rarely influenced by the blues. She is a master finger picker. In her voice you may hear Sandy Denny’s hurt or the purity of Shirley Collins, however, Allysen is her own woman, with her own approach – well equipped with a healthy do-it-yourself approach coming directly from punk.

Ghost Folk is purely modern and only plays with tradition, its themes and motifs – it is never conservative. Callery’s stylistic backwards glance is part of her mysterious continuum of self-reflection and observance – her own little twilight zone. It is all well situated between the eternal lament of the traditional ballad Katie Cruel and November Man, an ode to the uncrowned king of the hidden, Nick Drake. It’s a world of cigarettes, sin and somnambulism - and sweet-bitter hope.

Ghost Folk is a beautiful mind map to help you come to terms with your ghosts – called and uncalled. May Our Lady of the Highway guide you.

The eerily beautiful folk music hit "Köhlerliesel" (Uhlisch / Storz 1957) runs as a musical leitmotif through the anti-Heimatfilm "Die Übriggebliebenen/Valley of the Leftovers". Five musicians interpret the song in variations that go far beyond cover versions and ironically comment on the film scene. This creates five independent songs that are worth listening to even without the film.

In addition, the five musicians each contribute a bonus track from their own repertoire.

The highly decorated filmmaker Enko Landmann ("Centerland") assisted the directors Eike Weinreich and Alexej Hermann as musical supervisor.

Tracklist:

1. Raindance Kid - Köhlerliesel 02:47
2. Raindance Kid - The Road 04:33
3. Allysen Callery - Köhlerliesel 02:34
4. Allysen Callery - Lyonesse 02:51
5. Blind Joe Black - Köhlerliesel 04:57
6. Blind Joe Black & St. Gallus Convention Tapes - Down the Road 04:07
7. Kristina Jung - Köhlerliesel 03:43
8. Kristina Jung - The North Water 04:21
9. Ryan Lee Crosby - Tell Me 03:40
10. Ryan Lee Crosby - Köhlerliesel 03:43

Latest Reviews & News:

"Soundtrack - Die Übriggebliebenen / Valley Of The Leftovers" review by Gästeliste

Da muss man erst einmal drauf kommen: Als "Anti-Heimatfilm" ist Eike Weinreichs und Alexey Hermanns "Die Übriggebliebenen" bereits beschrieben worden, musikalisch taucht in dem finster-skurrilen Familiendrama vor idyllischer Dorfkulisse aber ausgerechnet ein sechzig Jahre alter Volksmusikschlager als Leitmotiv auf, an dem sich - Schluck! - einst sogar Tony Marshall versucht hat. Mit bierseliger Schunkelei im Polka-Rhythmus haben die Filmversionen glücklicherweise nichts gemein, wie der auf dem Oberhausener Liebhaber-Label Cosirecords veröffentlichte Soundtrack beweist. Gleich fünf verschiedene Künstler interpretieren hier "Köhlerliesel", Langeweile kommt trotzdem nicht auf, denn die Versionen könnten unterschiedlicher nicht sein: Raindance Kid aus Hamburg verfrachten den urdeutschen Song mit englischem Text und wehmütigem Americana-Flair in den amerikanischen Mittelwesten, und auch Ruhrpott-Troubadour Blind Joe Black blickt über den großen Teich: Mit seiner Banjo-und-Mundharmonika-Version schlägt er die Brücke von deutscher Volksmusik zu amerikanischem Folk. Kristina Jung dagegen findet ihre Interpretation zwischen Belcanto, Folk und einem Hauch von Dream-Pop. Die beiden ungewöhnlichsten Fassungen stammen derweil aus den USA: Allysen Callery reduziert das Lied auf Stimme und Akustikgitarre und wagt sich in ihrer Ghost-Folk-Versionen sogar lautmalerisch an den deutschen Text. Ryan Lee Crosby war genau das offenbar zu heikel. Er steuert ein sehnsüchtiges Slide-Guitar-Instrumental bei, die wie gemacht ist für den 5-Uhr-morgens-Blues. Als "Zugabe" gibt es dann noch eigene Songs der fünf Künstler, denn die nächsten Veröffentlichungen von Cosirecords werfen schon ihre Schatten voraus. Simon Mahler

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"Die Übriggebliebenen/ Valley of The Leftovers" review by Westzeit

Die feine Filmmusik zu ""Die Übriggebliebenen/Valley of the Leftovers"(Cosi) besteht aus 5 Interpretationen vom "Köhlerliesel" (bes. grandios die von Kristina Jung!), zumeist als dunkler Banjo-Slide-AvantCountry, zu dem man sich Nick Cave als Duettpartner wünschen würde, und je 5 eigenen Stücken der Beteiligten.

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His new LP River Music is a new step in Ryan Lee Crosby's musical development. Inspired by an intense study of African and Indian musicians such as Ali Farka Touré or Pandit Debashish Bhattacharya, Ryan absorbs sounds of Mali-Blues and Indian Ragas while playing a 22-stringed Indian slide-guitar and being accompanied by breath-taking tabla playing. As a contrast the sound of the band is completed by a gutsy blues harp and some mean electric guitar as if Jerry Garcia, Charles Musselwhite, and Ravi Shankar were having a relaxed jam-session on some shadowed patio somewhere in Mumbai.

Allysen Callery is a folk artist from Rhode Island/USA, Her vocal delivery recalls the haunting style of the late 60’s early 70’s British Folk Revival.

Her first two albums Hopey (2007) and Hobgoblin’s Hat (2010) were self released, but reached an international audience, thanks to radio stations such as Folk Radio UK, Sideways Through Sound (Australia) & favorable reviews from Terrascope.

In 2011 her EP Winter Island was released by Berlin based indie label Woodland Recordings, with Allysen touring Germany & Switzerland in it’s support. The rare first edition of this EP sold out in it’s first month of release.

In 2012 her second EP The Summer Place again was released by  Woodland Recordings, with Allysen again returning to Germany and Switzerland. In addition the vinyl only record label JellyFant pressed Winter Island &The Summer Place into one beautiful limited edition record.

September 2013 marked Allysen’s 5th release, the full length Mumblin’ Sue on JellyFant (DE) and domestically on the eclectic 75 or Less label for CDs, iconic artwork designed by the great William Schaff.

2014 saw the release of an EP Allysen Callery Folk Radio UK Session which marked the first official pairing of Allysen and musician/producer Bob Kendall, who provided a delicate psyche touch on 4 tracks, including a never before released track called All in the Morning and a cover of the Traditional Blackwaterside. Two singles were later released that year a cover of Bonnie Prince Billy’s I Gave You for the music blog Slowcoustic and on JellyFant Schallplatten a cover of Sybille Baier’s The End with sweeping production by Bob Kendall.

In 2016 her 6th full length album The Song the Songbird Sings was self-released on CD. In 2017 it was released on vinyl in cooperation of Jellyfant and cosirecords.

Also in 2017 the EP “Prince’s Pine” was release on the UK Folk Label Reverb Worship.

Allysen tours in Germany, Switzerland and Italy, and domestically from Maine to NYC.

In 2014 she played multiple showcases at the SXSW (South by Southwest) festival, and was ranked highly by The Washington Post and out of 1500 acts made a list of 40 by NPR ‘s Bob Boilen for “Intriguing unknown artists”.

On July 30th, 2015, Allysen sang on the Harbour Stage with the folk group Haunt The House at The Newport Folk Festival.

March 2017 Allysen returned to SXSW to play two showcases.