:: Buy Now: $14.98
:: Details
In light of John Fahey's late-career revival, multifaceted acoustic fingerpickers repeatedly find themselves compared to the eccentric visionary. On Imaginational Anthem, a collection of 16 solo guitar tracks from 1965-2005, Fahey represents with 1991's "O' Holy Night." Despite his tenderly decelerated Christmas hymn, it's less name-dropped players imparting revelation.
Titled after a tune Max Ochs (Phil's cousin) wrote as tribute to Fahey, the compilation meshes classics (and near classics) with newer pieces. Ochs plays the time-lapse at both ends—the 2004 take of his "Imaginational Anthem" opens the proceedings, and the album closes with the brief, less pristine 1969 version. All said, 14 of the tracks are previously unreleased, nine of which were recorded especially for the project.
Strange Attractors-style youngsters arrive in droves, including Glenn Jones and Montreal's Harris Newman, with Bruce Cawdron of Godspeed You! Black Emperor. Gyan Riley and his iconic minimalist father, Terry Riley, collaborate on live guitar and piano. Pelt's Jack Rose rumbles with marathon thorniness. Also present are Brad Barr of The Slip and female wunderkind Kaki King.
Emerging from history's blind spots, Suni McGrath, Ochs, Steve Mann, Janet Smith, and Bob Hadley put their first sounds to tape in decades. McGrath's speedy "Track Z," from his forthcoming Tompkins Square studio album, taps Appalachian rapture. Bern Nix, onetime member of Ornette Coleman's Prime Time ensemble, splinters ragtime on "Low Barometer." Sandy Bull's "Untitled" was taken from a home session recorded before he died in 2001. The raga atmospherics of "Dorian Sonata" originally appeared on Harry Taussig's 1965 private press, Fate Is Only Once, scheduled for reissue on Tompkins Square. Generous liner notes dispense background info as well as noting upcoming Tompkins Square transmissions.
Judging from the label's projected releases, Imaginational Anthem is a germinal project. The label—inspired by Takoma Records' 1967 Contemporary Guitar compilation with Fahey, Ochs, Taussig, Robbie Basho, and Bukka White—is arriving just in time to provide essential background material for those caught up in neo-folk's escalating popularity. So here's to 'em, bad peacock cover art and all.
Subscribe to Feed
