Pitchfork

With that Pitchfork Music Festival thingy starting in mere hours, you might think we'd be all sunshine and rainbows over here at HQ. And we are, for the most part. But we're also in touch with the fact that-- when you're not attending music festivals with free ambrosia served by Chan Marshall and Stephen Malkmus and where the artists play on stages made of gold (not really, but water is cheap!)-- sometimes life is hard. Like "these aren't only lemons Life just handed me; they're rotten lemons injected with poison" hard.

It's for those poison lemon times that the People Take Warning! Murder Ballads & Disaster Songs, 1913-1938 box set was created. According to a press release, the set features 70 songs (over 30 of which have never been reissued before) "of death, destruction, and disaster, recorded by black and white performers from the dawn of American roots recording," including artists like Charlie Patton, Charlie Poole, Ernest Stoneman, Furry Lewis, and Uncle Dave Macon.

All of the songs included in the three-CD box set have been remastered from their original 78s, and the package comes with a 52-page booklet featuring rare images and an introduction by Tom Waits.

Tompkins Square will release People Take Warning! on September 25.