Sunday, 12 July 2009
Loner Moves
Been enjoying the music of Dave Bixby lately. Something penetrating and unpleasantly haunting about it. Definitely one of the finest outsider/loner folk albums I've ever heard. It's just been reissued on CD and 180g vinyl over at Guerssen Records
Here's the blurb from the label:
"Since its discovery in the late 90s, Dave Bixby's legendary $2000 private press album from 1969 is considered by all serious record collectors as the king in the loner/ downer folk genre.
After being involved in 60s Michigan folk and garage- rock bands such as The Shillelaghs and Peter & The Prophets, Bixby started playing acoustic guitar and experimenting with LSD. After a year of drug abuse he felt broken. Starting a soul- searching, spiritual journey, he wrote '' Ode to Quetzalcoatl'' and most of the material for his second album, Harbinger's '' Second Coming'' in just one month and a half.
Assisted by fellow musician Brian MacInness, who played some guitar parts on the album, Dave recorded '' Quetzalcoatl'' using a echo- laden four track machine in a flat's living room. The sound is lo- fi and sparse: just acoustic guitars and some occasional harmonica & flute, added to Bixby's haunting, emotional vocals, spiritual lyrics and solid songwriting. The opening cut, the eerie and painful '' Drug Song'' sets the mood perfectly for the rest of the album which contains more tormented titles like '' 666'' , '' Lonely faces'' , Open Doors'' , '' Secret forest'' …Never an acoustic folk album sounded so intense as this.
Reissued for the first time under license from Dave Bixby. Carefully remastered sound from vinyl (no master tapes exists) done at Shadoks Music Studios, booklet with extensive and detailed liner notes by Matvei Procak - the guy who found Bixby in 2006 - plus some rare pictures."
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