Album Reviews:
1978: Visions of the Country
Visions of the Country
Album: Genre Classic, 6/10 | Released: 1978 | Specific Genre: American Primitivism | Main Genre: Folk, Contemporary Folk, Progressive Folk | Undertones: Raga, New Age | Label: Windham Hill
Follow the milky way… home
When trying to imagine an ideal audience for Basho’s mystical and mystified fingerpicking guitar work and his undulating, mannerist vocals, I fail to come up with anything but a field of grain – and every spike of wheat is intently listening, bending its little tufts toward the oblivious quasi-priest preaching to himself, or the wind. The new age demeanor of this particular brand of American primitivism guitar is somewhat flabbergasting – but his highly advanced fingerpicking skills trying to marry American folk to classical raga structures is intriguing. The pristinely articulated steel guitar, cleanly cutting over the grassland, forms an interesting contrast to his vibrato-laden, somewhat contourless voice – and the self-centered delivery, as if speaking to only himself, is an aesthetic gamble as the piano-supported piece “Orphan’s Lament” shows. It’s certainly an approach that doesn’t concern itself with a supposed audience, which I assume is the album’s appeal among fans, having gone from a commercial failure to one of the most acclaimed albums of progressive folk music.
Text Lambrecht 