Amazing ambient acoustic folk with brilliant poetic lyrics
Written: May 09 '09 (Updated Sep 26 '09)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Beautiful, ambient poetry with some stunning - and serious - lyrics.
Cons: Hard to find, may not be what the listener expects.
The Bottom Line: Ambient, intense, quiet, earthy, and poetic, Parallelograms is probably the truest "lost treasure" of its time.
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| zhulin's Full Review: Parallelograms by Linda Perhacs |
In recent years, largely because of the fact that I have become more experienced with reading music criticism, there have been fewer records old or new that have seriously excited me. Realising as I do now from reading amateur as well as professional critics that what is often assumed to be "unique and original" is in fact anything but has made me generally rather sceptical.
In this context, my discovery on amazon.com of a 1970 album titled Parallelograms by a singer/songwriter called Linda Perhacs is a wonderful revelation that certainly should not be ignored. Perhacs was originally from the Pacific Northwest and worked as a dental hygenist before and after recording Parallelograms. The album was a complete failure commercially and failed to capture the attention of critics who were largely focused on those acts who were to lay groundwork for the "punk revolution" of the late 1970s such as the Stooges, the MC5, Captain Beefheart and even Randy Newman. Afterwards Perhacs returned to her medical work and never recorded again.
However, that failure takes nothing away from the fact that Parallelograms is a quite unique and wonderful offering among the singer/songwriter albums of its time. For a start, the lyrics are neither confessional romantic tales nor protest songs nor intensely personal mystical stories, but rather show a range from earthy nature poetry to some of the most biting satire one will hear. In most of the songs, even those less focused on the natural world, Perhacs managed to write with a remarkable sense of rhythm that can be seen perfectly in the harmony between the lines "That's the way you've always/Been" and "You're like a paper mountain/Man" in the album's most essential track. Moreover, the way in which she writes makes every subject covered on Parallelograms seem real to the listener, something most strongly exemplified on "Call of the River" and the title song.
Moreover, the music on Parallelograms is as stunning as the poetry it accompanies. Rather than sparse acoustic guitar or electrified folk, Parallelograms can best be described as ambient folk. The sound is based around acoustic guitars, but they are played in such a manner to create a wonderful sense of atmosphere that perfectly matches the lyrical themes of natural beauty set on the opener "Chimacum Rain" in which every word seems to describe vividly life inside the wet forests of the Pacific Northwest. The 2005 reissue of Parallelograms has two additional versions of "Chimacum Rain" that benefit both from the remarkably well-suited percussion sounds and from the starker arrangement that gives Perhacs' beautifully melodic voice more room to work.
All this, however, is dwarfed by the amazing second track, "Paper Mountain Man", that must absolutely take its place among the musical masterpieces of the twentieth century. Blending a simple acoustic guitar with percussion and a harmonica used in a most unusual manner as an accompaniment rather than a solo instrument, Perhacs weaves an amazing tale of the failure of hippies to protect the natural world as they thought they were doing. The lyrics are amazingly precise and fit together in a manner remarkably rare in music because Perhacs has a sense of how to make verses that is exceptional even among the most experienced of poets.
Third track "Dolphin" returns to the quiet, nature-based mood of "Chimcaum Rain", but the beautiful "Call of the River" carries this into a dimension far beyond. The intense, atmospheric mood of relatively simple guitar, bass and woodwind instrumentation is like nothing else you will hear and is closer to experimental bands like Can than most singer/songwriters of the 1970s. "Sandy Toes" is almost a respite but is really beautiful, but the amazing electronics of the title tune and "Moon and Cattails" go still deeper into the mire of nature poetry. Lyrics like "The naked blackness/Of basalt" and "the soaking taste of leaves/The cooling memory/Of shadows" are something that could only come from a person with the most tremendous natural talent. The music, too, is a wonder with its soft intensity and true energy due to the amazingly deep breathing of the saxophone and flute and the long fermatas in Perhacs' voice.
"Morning Colours" is a sensual delight rarely equalled, whilst on "Porcelain Baked Cast Iron Wedding" Perhacs returns to the satirical tone of "Paper Mountain Man" to show herself as a truly assertive woman unwilling to be exploited by sexually aggressive men. The closer, "Delicious" is a wonderful work of love poetry that is more sensual than even what precedes it here. Perhacs' desire for a lasting love is expressed like no other singer/songwriter ever was able to. The bonus single "If You Were My Man" is more accessible and less poetic than the rest of Parallelograms but even more beautiful owing to its piano accompaniment.
Among the host of singer/songwriter albums from the early 1970s, Parallelograms stands as an absolute stunner with a unique approach as close to ambient music as folk and a lyricism that not only possesses a wonderful poetic sense, but is more cerebral than anything else from the time. There is no doubt that Parallelograms was and is far too challenging for widespread appeal, but for the serious music listener it stands as a unique masterpiece.
Recommended:
Yes
Great Music to Play While: Reading or Studying
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zhulin
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Reviews written: 94
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