linda perhacs

linda perhacs - the soul of all natural things (asthmatic kitty, 2014)

"Perhacs began making music again. In 2010, she connected with a new generation of LA musicians attuned to her vision, including Fernando Perdomo and Chris Price, both accomplished musicians and producers in their own right. The trio began recording the eclipse song, “River Of God”, and what became a new album’s title track, The Soul Of All Natural Things. The Soul Of All Natural Things, for all its apparent serenity, is also a subtly polemical album, full of exhortations to take a step out of our frantic everyday lives. “We get too far out of balance and we must find a way to get back to our polestar,” Perhacs says. “I have a deeper purpose. My soul is giving itself to the people; I want them to be helped, I want them to be lifted.”

Cuando todos los síntomas indicaban lo contrario: el renacer folky de mediados de la década pasada había pasado, habíamos atendido a regresos tan improbables como deseados (Mark Fry, Simon Finn o Vasthi Bunyan) y, sobre todo, el inexorable paso del tiempo. Yo siento una especial debilidad por toda la magia que reside en muchos de esos, otrora olvidados, discos de finales de los 60 y primeros de los 70 que parecen haber capturado de forma súbita algo atemporal, inefable, un mundo paralelo que se detuvo entonces y que ya sólo reverdece en nuestra imaginación. Con Linda Perhacs la espera ha durado más de media vida, 44 años para que esta higienista dental afincada en California asomara de nuevo tras uno de los discos capitales del folk psicodélico, 'paralellograms' con su atmósfera íntima, sensual y sus silencios y devaneos abstractos.

Escuchando 'the soul of all natural things' resulta evidente que no es tanto un esfuerzo personal sino comunitario (en asthmatic kitty cuentan la historia con detalle) pero en el que perdura una visión de un mundo a bajas revoluciones. Esto es palpable es un disco lleno de armonías, más suntuoso, con bellos arreglos de cuerda como en 'river god' o la canción que da título al álbum. En cambio, 'freely', 'prisms of glass' o 'songs of the planets' parecen conectar de un modo más claro con el espíritu de 'parallelograms'. Así, entre ecos encantados que van difuminándose poco a poco, aún hoy parece que, mientras los rayos del sol se filtran a través de las hojas de los árboles, podrías toparte con Linda por las praderas y montañas de Topanga Canyon.

buy - listen

castanets

castanets - texas rose, the thaw, and the beasts (asthmatic kitty 2009)

"....Last year's Castanets release, City of Refuge, was dry as Death Valley. Overheated amps buzzing, desert rat life, hot air crackles. Texas Rose, then, comes six minutes before the flood. It's antediluvian, pregnant with impending new-life change and wet with the first sprinkles from that scary mofo of a black cloud in the distance...If Refuge was an "alone record", Texas Rose sounds like Castanets the band..." asthmatic kitty

download

castanets

castanets - city of refuge (asthmatic kitty 2008)

reaparece Raymond Raposa…y hay que ver cómo reaparece: City of Refuge es el disco que me gustaría haber escuchado después de Cathedral. los coros de Jana Hunter en Glory B, un gospel delicado llamado I'll Fly away, el clima general, tan desértico y ambiental que podría ser una banda sonora de cualquier spaguetti western, y After the Fall, que es la joya de un disco muy muy bonito, en el que, por fin, no sobra nada. ojalá que su próximo homenaje a Hank Williams siga la senda de City of Refuge

"The result of three weeks alone in a Nevada desert motel room, City of Refuge blazed into Ray Raposa's mind with the rising sun...Far from distractions and infused with the sense of isolation explored by the songs he'd written for the album, it proved the optimal backdrop. Minimal overdubs by friends Jana Hunter, Sufjan Stevens, Dawn Smithson, Scott Tuma (Souled American, Boxhead Ensemble), and co-producer Ero Gray were added later, but the silence of the sparsely populated region underscores the sounds of Raposa's voice and instruments.

...With an uneasy, asymmetric weave of sung songs, chants, electronic noise solos and spaghetti-western guitar interludes, City suggests a film soundtrack. Possibly a nocturnal, black and white contemporary desert western with characters real and imaginary, a failing motel on a little-used old highway, gas-well flares flickering far off in the night, the spirit-body of Lee Van Cleef watching from the shadows, a sliding eidetic road seen with closed eyes, the disturbing memory of an encounter that may or may not have been a dream, fallen bare wires crackling somewhere in the desert, the mingled odors of sagebrush smoke, candle wax, warm beer, and an overheated amplifier, and the howls of coyotes..." asthmatic kitty

download