Struggle in the Hive's self-titled debut is caught in limbo - somewhere between adolescence and adulthood, wakefulness and sleep, joy and sadness, hope and loss.

Primarily a two-person project of Pat Stolley (under the name B. Patric) and Jeff Konrad (under the name Nigel Jeffrey), Struggle in the Hive is a quiet, deliberately simple collection of often fragmentary songs that at first blush seem the products of inexperienced songwriters.

You could say that Mark Hummel's career in the blues is rooted in ignorance. Just not his own.

A few years ago, Hummel's reviews of books about harpist Little Walter and guitar legend Mike Bloomfield were published. "The main reason I started writing," he said in a recent interview, is because so many writers "didn't seem to have a whole lot of knowledge about the music." Now the noted West Coast harmonica player in the trademark porkpie hat has broadened that desire to educate as a contributing writer to the online blues magazine BluesWax (http://www.blueswax.com), where he especially enjoys interviewing musicians whom he thinks deserve more recognition.

Just when I begin to think that every important album or rare out-of-print single is available somewhere in the digital mist in a glossy remastered edition or included in a fancy box set, along comes the Fresh Maggots' 1971 debut, an album that - until this week's CD reissue - consistently brought more than $400 on eBay in its original LP format. Known and coveted by connoisseurs of the psychedelic British folk sound that reaches from The Incredible String Band, Pentangle, and Bill Fay to Robyn Hitchcock, Beta Band, Devendra Banhart, and other new cosmic travelers, this five-star masterpiece of hypnotic vocals, electric fuzz guitar, trippy tin whistle, and shimmering six- and 12-string guitars is a must-seek-out aural experience. It's too bad the neighborhood planetarium isn't still running the eternal Pink Floyd laser show, as this would make the perfect seating music. Released by England's Sunbeam Records, and available on audiophile vinyl LP reissue on Germany's Soundroom imprint, these sessions capture the young duo of Mick Burgoyne and Leigh Dolphin, both 19 at the time of this recording, together in a golden, magic moment. Bonus tracks, interview introductions, and enlightening new liner notes round out the CD nicely.

Chris Vallillo studied archeology in college, but when that didn't suit him professionally, he decided to give music a shot.

"I figured if I was going to starve, I was going to go ahead and try to play music and just see if I could make a living at it," he said in an interview last week.

But Vallillo's vocational choices aren't all that different: Both archeology and the study of folk music involve the excavation of artifacts to help illuminate the way people lived deep in the past. Vallillo - a singer, songwriter, guitarist, and folklorist based out of Macomb - is one of the main-stage performers at the Midwest Folk Festival this weekend in Bishop Hill, Illinois.