Sing the Children Over/Sand in My Shoe

Originally released by Chapter Music in 2008, this is the first of two double disc reissues by extraordinary early-'80s folk duo Kath Bloom and Loren Connors. Meeting in 1976 in their hometown of New Haven, CT, Bloom and Connors formed a creative partnership that has haunted psych-folk fans ever since, releasing six albums of fragile, avant-garde folk-blues in miniscule quantities, all of which now change hands for huge sums.

Sing the Children Over emerged in 1982; Sand in My Shoe in 1983. The albums mixed traditional folk and blues songs with Kath's originals, revealing Kath to be an accomplished and moving songwriter. It also set up the dynamic template that she and Loren would follow over their remaining recordings - Kath's fragile voice and subdued finger-picked guitar set against Loren's playing: abstract, skittering, sometimes atonal but always intuitively supportive.