Kenneth Higney - 'Attic Demonstration' (One Kind Favor)

For a record as legendary as Attic Demonstration, it's not a long listen, but it's pretty satisfying. Thankfully this reissue is easily available, because originals go for a fortune, as this was never actually 'released'. Higney, in the liner notes, explains that this was a series of demos he recorded to show his songwriting talent, and he sang these as drafts, without ever intending to be the ultimate singer or musician. This was pressed up as an LP to make it easier for him to send it to people (as this was the late 70s) but I don't completely buy that explanation. I mean, why would you put a photo of yourself front and centre if you're just trying to sell some songs to others? I think the answer is somewhere more in-between; clearly Higney was operating out of the privately-pressed lineage (though I guess it's hard to declare that as ever being a scene, being so geographically dispersed and also recording-based rather than concert-focused; I guess it's a scene that came together 30 years after the fact with The Acid Archives and all that). Additionally, the music is so fleshed out, a vision of dark ramshackle psych that is so complete (in how bare it is) that I would think a potential 'customer' would be overwhelmed by the flanged guitars shredding solos and the burnout pulse throughout. Well, no one bit. The instrumentation isn't credited to anyone specifically but the reissue liner notes thank a now-deceased musician named Gordon Gaines for the guitar playing; I wonder if he's also the bassist and drummer, or if this is Higney himself bashing around. I don't want to buy into a narrative that Higney couldn't sing or play, but certainly there is a rawness in the vocals that goes far beyond the Dylan/Reed school of the unschooled; at times the melody isn't even remotely clear, lost in a flurry of missed corners -- and you think a clear vocal melody would be the goal if one was genuinely trying to sell songs. Lyrics are printed on the back, which allows the lengthier tracks ('Rock Star' and 'Ley Us Pray') to be examined more thoroughly; the latter of these is the most fragile, and also populated with unclear characters (perhaps allegorical). Throughout all songs, though, the more visceral parts of Attic Demonstration jump out from the recording, burrowing into my mind, and making the lyric sheet feel disconnected anyway. I've always put 'Children of Sound' on mixtapes as it perfectly captures the dream of psychedelia after being watered down through a few years of disappointment. The cadences are often jerky (opening cut 'Night Rider' appears to start on the off-beat; 'Quietly Leave Me' feels like it's being made up as it goes along) and the mix is uneven too; again, I suspect this was meant not to be a serious foray into the music world but were any of these self-released items genuinely mistaken for stabs at greatness? In the annals of broken/outsider greatness I personally think Attic Demonstration comes from a place more primal, more desperate and more authentic than a lot of the others - it's a very male (hairy) attack on songcraft, but a convincing one, and it never slides even remotely close to novelty territory as many others do.

Gato Barbieri - 'In Search of the Mystery' (Get Back)

This is an ESP classic from '67 that Get Back lovingly reissued on 'HQ 180 GRAM PURE VIRGIN VINYL' and it sounds great. Barbieri's deep, sexy sax tone resonates with that wide vibrato throughout. It's almost as wide as Ayler's yet it's modulated totally differently. Where you get a guttural energy from Albert, Gato kicks it out no less emotional, yet with totally different emotions. It's hard for me to look at this cover picture and not see something crafty in Gato's expression. So whenever I listen to this, I can't help but think that he'd be the wrong saxophonist to leave your girlfriend with alone, let's say you're at a party together and they're chatting by the keg. I'm sure he's a standup guy in real life but 'In Search of the Mystery' is free jazz's seduction music. The whole of side 1 really burns slowly, like a flickering candle that won't go out. Sirone is on bass (I love his work with the Revolutionary Ensemble); here, he's joined by Calo Scott's cello and there's times when I'm not sure who's doing what. You'd think there'd be some great interplay between the two, and while there are moments (mostly occuring on the second side), they really play second (and third) fiddle to Gato's deep reeds. It's the B-side, with 'Obsession no. 2' and 'Cinematque' that gestures towards more dissonant, grating Braxtonisms (though not too much - there's still something politely accessible about it all). I don't know if he found the mystery but I always want to listen to this in the late hours of the evening. A chillout/comedown record? But fiery as well, just not abrasive in the slightest. Barbieri's later Latin experiments scare me away but he forever gets a pass from me for Escalator Over the Hill and Liberation Music Orchestra, so he kept the right company.