Nina Simone - It's Finished (RCA,1974)

Siempre me torcerás,

no puedo resistirme.

......

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Charlie Tweedle - Fantastic Greatest Hits (1974)

Uno de los míticos discos de folk outsider que han conseguido tener una segunda vida tras su reedición y gracias a la labor de la esfera blogger en ir topándose con la maravillosa extrañeza que presenta en la que te encuentras tan cerca de Alvin Lucier , Robert Ashley o Harry Partch como de Dylan, Skip Spence e incluso Scott Tuma. Folk entre grabaciones de campo e interferncias sonoras entre la dulce voz de Charlie y su banda alucinada. Me gusta como en las reseñas empleadas por el sello Companion en su reedición recurren a la imagen de decadencia folk surrealista del film "Deliverance". Me gusta como lo describen , así que tan solo destaco algunas referencias y como no, os lo recomiendo en esta tarde domingo en el que escucho desde la calma estas alucinaciones antes de comenzar la vuelta al trabajo tras el descanso vacacional.

Incredibly strange (true, for once) real people artefact from a Bay Area guy who claims to be "king of the flying saucer people". Moves in a Grudzien/Skip Spence direction but without their big city vibes, more like if one of those inbred hillbilly degenerates in "Deliverance" made an LP, complete with pig oinks. First side is twisted backporch acid folkblues with amazing lyrics, side 2 is mostly the sound of crickets, water and nightbirds with fragments of music here and there, like if the tripper wandered off into the woods. It's hard to determine the angle Tweddle is coming from as the music is obviously retro yet has an undeniable authenticity to it, not unlike Bob Dylan's early 1960s bootleg recordings. The "Alien Invaders" track rivals Grudzien for surreal mountain music, and the "sounds of nature" side sucks you into a forgotten movie inside your mind. One of the major pieces in the Fringe Of Everything genre, and a great foldout sleeve too. Apparently Charlie is a famous designer of $1000 cowboy hats!

http://www.lysergia.com/AcidArchives/lamaArchiveT.html

We are happy to announce the reissue of eccentric folk artist Charlie Tweddle's self-released 1974 LP Fantastic Greatest Hits, a unique blend of psychedelic country and tape experiments.

Charlie felt sure his new style of music would take the world by storm - it didn't work out that way. Recorded in 1971, 500 copies of Fantastic Greatest Hits were pressed in 1974 under the name Eilrahc Elddewt with extravagant packaging. The LP was hand-distributed and received only minimal positive feedback; sales were poor.

Why? Well for one, side two of the album is 25 minutes of chirping crickets and sound fragments. The abrupt patches of dead air on side one probably didn't help much either. More than a few of these albums were returned as "defective". Of course, all of these production moves were intentional.

The CD was transferred from a copy of the original album. It includes six unreleased tracks from the same period as well as all of the original artwork in a fold-out digipak. We hope you find it as nice and as interesting as we do.

Charlie Tweddle. What a name. Figured it had to be a stage name, but nope,he's a real Tweddle from a long line of Tweddles. Also figured his obscure 1974 album would be the story when I met him, and nope again, it's just one of many crazy projects he's worked on in his life.

Charlie's a good guy. Very warm and open. Has a wonderful wife and carries himself like a simple, old-fashioned country boy. Before long it becomes apparent that he's anything but. Yes, he was raised in a Kentucky cabin with no running water or electricity, and yes, he's picked watermelons and designs roadkill cowboy hats for a living, but Charlie's art is as savvy and calculated as it gets - not one effect or detail escapes his attention.

Fantastic Greatest Hits was created after a long chain of events including a lead guitar position in the Kansas City garage band The Prophets of Paradise, a stint in art school, a 3 year lsyrgic tour through the Haight-Ashbury, and a childhood filled with chirping crickets and UFO sightings. By the time 1971 rolled around, Charlie's pharmaceutical wanderings led him to believe he was a real life prophet and that his brand of Appalachian Psychedelia would change the world. Instead, the LP was almost universally panned and he spun off into a deep depression from which he wouldn't emerge for several years.

Fast forward 20 or so years and his lone eccentric LP would become a highly sought-after (and befuddling) psychedelic artifact, quietly championed by the few who had the great fortune to run across a copy in a flea market or thrift shop. Give this album some time, we think (and hope) you will find it rewarding in some small or big way.

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King Tubby Meets the Upsetter: At The Grass Roots of Dub (Total Sounds,1974)

El encuentro entre Lee Scratch Perry y King Tubby en este disco , producido por Winston Edwards y grabado en sus estudios propios, Black Ark y King Tubby's en Kingston, creando un documento único y eterno dentro de la música dub, ya que se trata de dos de las figuras más creativas dentro de la música jamaicana esos años.

El sonido primitivo y experimental del disco es otra de sus virtudes. "African Roots" tiene un aire tan arrebatado que me recuerda al homenaje que le hace Markku Peltola y sus Buster Keaton Orchestra combinado con el western hace unos años. O la maravillosa "Woods Roots", con todos esos efectos rodeando la melodía o los aires de suspense funky de "Luxe Lane Rock".La skatalitica "People From the Grass Roots" sigue siendo portuaria y recordándote el estado mental de andar trompa.Pero el remate final con "King and the Upsetter at the Spanish Town" fundiéndose con el toque latino es sin duda, otra maravillosa demostración de talento.

Disco inconmensurable y absolutamente necesario.

Keith Hudson : Pick a Dub (Atra,1974)

Está claro, que la vida jamaicana tiene poco que ver con la europea y su ritmo es completamente distitno. A eso,obviamente hay que añadirle el consumo de marihuana y la sensación que transmite su consumo (uno que estudió en Holanda,sabe bien lo que es encontrar hierbas variopintas y estimuladoras). Por lo tanto el sonido de Jamaica sigue siendo único y el futuro descubrimiento de dicha música han sido una fuente inagotable de nuevas ideas, desde el post punk a la música electrónica. Tampoco podemos olvidar las maravillosas producciones que salían de los distintos estudios donde gente como King Tubby,Joe Gibbs o Lee Scratch Perry,hacían de las suyas creando sesiones de grabación y post producciones con un valor añadido fuera de toda duda.

Lloyd Lindburg, es otro productor de Kingston, y "Pick a Dub" junto a "Flesh on my Skin:Blood of my Blood"(1975) que tal vez no haya tenido el cartel de otros compañeros de generación, pero cuyos discos son completos y devastadores documentos del escapismo dub y el detallismo de tremendas composiciones como la titular "Pick a Dub", de melodías melancólicas como "Michael Talbot Affair" cercanas al blues, de psicodélicas sensaciones dentro de "Dreaded Than" o la maravillosa "In The Rain", son simplemente ejemplos de grandeza y permeabilidad.

Con un buen trócalo las cosas se ven a otro ritmo, tal vez deba recuperar mi afición a dichas sustancias cada vez que quiera recuperar estos discos. Necesarios,por otro lado.Solo me falta coger la melódica y ponerme a susurrarle a las palmeras,tan del Levante Mediterráneo, o acercarme al puerto cuando no haga frío.