Best of compilations are tricky beasts. The very signifier itself suggests an inherent subjectivity that can’t help but breed contention. Then there’s the problem of scope. What part of a musician’s folio is under scrutiny and why so? Is he or she even part of the winnowing process? What are the parameters for inclusion/exclusion? Fortunately in Fahey’s case the answers to these questions are forthcoming.
Guitarist Henry Kaiser does the cherry-picking, attempting to build upon his subject’s own choices for Volume 1. The disc covers a nineteen year span, but in a fashion reminiscent of Fahey himself, three cuts jump the borders and come an album, Azalea City Memories (and Dreams of Prince George’s County), originally intended for release on Shanachie in 1991. It’s these cuts that make the set valuable to Fahey neophytes and fanatics alike. There’s also the rare 13-minute “The Fahey Sampler,” a pastiche of pieces recorded in 1967 that incorporates fragments older tunes like “When Springtime Comes Again” and “The Transcendental Waterfall.”
Other selections draw on material from albums both rare and readily available including: Dance of Death & Other Plantation Favorites (1964), Transfiguration of Blind Joe Death (1965), Old Fashioned Love (1975), Visits Washington D.C. (1979), and Live in Tasmania (1981), Railroad (1983), among others. Programmed as such, it’s an absorbing tour through Fahey’s looking glass psyche where Americana regularly fuses with fantasia. The agenda adheres solely his acoustic guitar works. His various experiments with loops, samples and other instruments are left by the wayside. Kaiser’s decision regarding their omission seems sound. The result is just under eighty-minutes of prime finger-picking steel guitar.
I’m always on the lookout for fresh driving music, whether it’s for the morning/afternoon commute or longer weekend excursions. Fahey’s music fits this purpose like few others. There’s something in the stark and measured voicing of his guitar that aligns preternaturally with the winding open road. His cyclic layered riffs, whether bright and sunny or dark and brooding (often simultaneously) seem to complement and even enhance the miles logged. This second helping and it’s earlier counterpart volume are valuable companions on road trips of varying sceneries and durations, say from Dalhart, TX to Monolith, CA? There’s a cement factory there that I hear is worth visiting.
.................................................. © 2003 - 2006 bagatellen ..................................................