john henry calvinist

john henry calvinist - king solomon hill (foxglove cdr 2006)

"David MacKinnon is best known for his work with Brisbane genre-benders the Lost Domain but he has over the years also released a few solo albums under the name of John Henry Calvinist. King Solomon Hill is his latest outing and maybe the least accessible yet, but also probably the one I like the most. What happens here is that we get a twisted, mostly instrumental version of back porch folk/blues from a guy who knows more about the genre than the rest of us do together. But don’t be fooled to believe that we just get an updated version of what once was; no this is so much more than that. The sum of the dusted past is clearly here but it’s placed in someone’s hands that treat history with such a respect that it’s mostly in terms of mood and atmosphere that the two fit together. This is raw and gorgeous, feedback-laced avant blues that feels like a future outsider classic." Broken Face

John Henry Calvinist hace del 'back porch acoustic blues' algo parecido a lo que hiciera Red hace unos años con Songs from a Room de Leonard Cohen o Greg Malcolm con Lonely Woman de Ornette Coleman, transformarlas y dejarlas prácticamente irreconocibles. como si Ben Reynolds le produjera un disco a Bill Fay y lo editase Celebrate Psi Phenomenon. King Solomon Hill es tan atemporal y puro, e impredecible, y atronador por momentos, que nunca te cansas de escucharlo, dura y dura y dura... me gustan sobre todo las dos canciones más emocionales, Lullaby (Sotto Voce) y la maravillosa Down on my bended (el esqueleto de John Fahey filtrado con blues del Delta al ralentí), pero también la intensa aridez de Yojimbo, la trepidante Jazz Airshot (August 86), algo así como el sueño dorado de Wolf Eyes, y la casi grindcoriana Keas. grillos robot encerrados en un sótano, bajos poderosos, seres de otro planeta... a veces da un poco de miedo pero en el fondo desprende buen feng shui