‘Committed to tape on February 20, 1979… a real declaration of identity for Loren. He was introducing himself publicly as a guitar player, although his approach was still very much dictated by the influence of the painter, Mark Rothko, who Loren once described as using a minimal palette to create vital art… The feel to this session is bluesy, in as much as Loren’s wordless vocals have a surface similarity to a hellhound’s, and while he was not using a slide, most of the notes he plays are bent to the edges of their known range. Fahey always said blues was ‘about’ anger, though there’s not really any of that here. I am more reminded of this Rothko quote. ‘You’ve got sadness in you, I’ve got sadness in me ... and my works of art are places where the two sadnesses can meet, and therefore both of us need to feel less sad.’ The first side is solo. On the second Loren is joined for a bit by Kath on hums and recorder. The music brims with sorrow more than anything else. And while it’s clear Loren was embracing an abstract avant garde aesthetic vis-a-vis his playing, the urge to communicate seems to lie at its roots. Whatever you choose to call it, this is the beginning of something quite beautiful’ (Byron Coley).

The classic 1970 debut with Beverley Martyn. Rehearsed in Woodstock, with Levon Helm guesting on a couple, Joe Boyd producing. Lovely.

Dawn Le Faun with Billy Le Bon, co-singers of The Letting Go and Wai Notes, digging up a modern(ish) parable from deep in their Everlys sack, afore getting down and sliding around on the flip.

‘A 6 part cosmic hobo’s dream suite for 23 string banjo… Metzger plucks, picks, bows and spins his way through a 40 minute odyssey making for his most ambitious and adventurous musical trip to date.’

Alasdair Roberts, Nancy Elizabeth, Michael Hurley, James Yorkston, Victoria Williams, Richard Youngs: six ravishing, luminous new interpretations. Short-run vinyl sampler, fine pressing, silk-screened sleeves.

A droning, slo-mo Leonard Cohen cover, and a collaboration with violinist Jessica Moss, from A Silver Mt. Zion; both around twelve minutes. Grouper’s a big fan.

With guests including Erika Elder, P.G. Six, Michael Flower, J Mascis from Dinosaur Jr and Jeremy Earle from Woods. A legs eleven and a midden mound of ‘sprawling jams (including the incredible Rudy Rucker inspired Freeware) and beautiful songs. A truly wondrous, sun-blinded, summer stoner record that lets the sand slip through its toes and tramps off in the direction of a mirage of a gigantic effigy of Ganesh.’ 180g; heavyweight, UV-coated, tip-on gatefold; poster insert. 300 only.

Recorded at Muscle Shoals in 1973: a feelingly spare, beautifully restrained concept album about a divorce, devoting a side to each point of view.
‘This is a hell of an emotional record, where even the celebratory honky tonk numbers are muted by sadness. Then, there are the centerpieces: Walkin’, where the woman decides it’s time to move on; Pretend I Never Happened, perhaps the coldest ending to a relationship ever written; Bloody Mary Morning, a bleary-eyed morning-after tale that became a standard; It’s Not Supposed to Be That Way, a nearly unbearably melancholy account of a love gone wrong; and Heaven and Hell, a waltz summary of the relationship. Any two of these would have formed a strong core for an album, but placed together in a narrative context, their impact is even more considerable. As a result, this is not just one of Willie Nelson’s best records, but one of the great concept albums overall’ (AllMusic).

‘***** beautiful, deeply affecting… hard to beat as the year’s most worthwhile reissue’, The Guardian; ‘magnificent… wonderfully austere’, Time Out.

‘Returns to original composition and the blues… with a freshness and authority that nostalgic retreads cannot deliver… Three songs (Odds Against Tomorrow, The Writhing Jar, Already Old) are multi-tracked, an innovation that, for guitar buffs familiar with Orcutt’s stripped-down vernacular, jumps out of the grooves like a Les Paul sound-on-sound excursion in 1948, or a Jandek blues rave-up in 1987. Specifically evoking John Lee Hooker’s double-track experiments on 1952’s Walking the Boogie, the steady chord vamps of Odds Against Tomorrow and Already Old form a harmonic turf on which Orcutt solos with lyrical abandon. The Writhing Jar’s crashing overdubs recall the brassy six-string voicings of This Heat or Illitch. With the exception of the unreconstructed Elmore James-isms of Stray Dog’ and the Layla-finale-like haze of All Your Buried Corpses Begin To Speak, the remaining non-overdubbed tracks dovetail snugly with Orcutt’s previous solo output, reeling gently in a Mazzacane-oid mode or vibing up the standards (Moon River)...  Odds Against Tomorrow challenges contemporary solo guitar practice in a way that simultaneously nullifies hazy dreams of folk purity and establishes a new high-water mark for blues-rock reconstruction” (Tom Carter).