This year’s WFMU Record Fair might not have resulted in the bounty I had hoped/budgeted for, but there were still some deals to be had, and long-lusted-after titles to be found. As I’ve described this week, most of my purchases skewed towards the modern. The oldest original pressing I purchased was the MX-80 Sound album Out Of The Tunnel on Ralph Records, followed by A Walk Across The Rooftops by The Blue Nile (1984 UK Linn pressing). I picked up some Earthless albums, some Ancestors albums, that one by Nihiti with the Marissa Nadler cover, as well as the three albums I highlighted during these weeks An Album A Day project.
One of the most intriguing records available during the fair was the recent reissue by Del Val of a private press record made in New Jersey way back in 1971. Believed to be a one-off (as in, only one copy in existence) homemade demo/acetate, Sunset Upon An Imaginary Beach Of Latent Energy by Kevin Aprill is a wonder of psychedelic folk that is now finally available to the masses in a limited-edition run of 1000 copies. The glorious, cosmic, far-out tunes on this record grow more and more damaged as they progress. The first side is – to these ears at least – pure Sandy Bull/Robbie Basho acoustic lamentations. The second side not-so-subtly ebbs into late-Fahey era headfuckery that traverses drone and noise and general weirdness. It’s glorious cosmic bliss, the type you’re more likely to hear from an Alien-8 artist than a dude in his NJ basement back in the early ’70s. It’s quite a trip. The label’s website says, “What Charlie Tweedle should have sounded like and/or if Peter Grudzien had done Metal Machine Music. Highly recommended.
Kevin Aprill
Sunset Upon An Imaginary Beach Of Latent Energy
(Del Val – DV-11, 2013)
A1. Ywain
A2. A Tranquil Sea
A3. Latent Energy
B1. Improvization In C For Solo Dulcimer
B2. On Tour Of The Solar System (Plutonium Airwaves – Solar Stop / Improvization Upon A Traditional Martian Scale / Rocket Waves)
