John Hulburt – Leapfrog
Tompkins Square – 24 August 2018
John Hulburt was a Chicagoan musician who was well known for being part of garage rock band The Knaves, who were performing back in the sixties, but he was also a supremely adept acoustic guitar player, as fellow Chicagoans Ryley Walker and Bill MacKay have been working hard to highlight, with Ryley helping to reissue John’s Opus III (1972) record on Tompkins Square back in 2015 and MacKay recording a faithful album of John’s songs in the same year. Leapfrog comes from a set of tapes recorded in 1998 and found by Hulburt’s sister and is now a digital release designed to be bundled with Opus III, but it would work equally well alongside Duck Baker’s Les Blues Du Richmond, also released on Tompkins Square earlier this year.
Like that album, Leapfrog is unpretentious and charming. There’s something magical about these records built from demos and outtakes that just delights; perhaps it’s that spark and innocence and freshness that is still with the pieces. All of the songs on Leapfrog are performed solo and most come in at under three minutes, with only a few exceptions. This brings a directness to the recording and enables each track to slip past well before the listener can be remotely tired of it; indeed, even the lovely little ‘Oh Yeah’, which very nearly gets ahead of itself towards the end and stumbles, feels honest and human. You get the impression that if we heard the fifth or sixth take when John probably nailed it, it would lack some of the charm of this nugget. That said, the best song on here is just over a minute long (it’s called ‘1:16’) and is an immaculately performed Spanish tinged marvel of a narrative, like an evening walk with the sun dipping, so there can also be something said for perfectly played compositions.
The songs are at their most beautiful when the tempo is slowed slightly and the space is let in. ‘For the Love of the Almcrantz’ is a piece of considered playing that ebbs and flows and is unafraid to halt things before beginning its point again. ‘Breathe’ is a fluttering daydream of a piece that starts as softly as you could wish before putting a few sharper notes in there, shifting the mood of the piece in the blink of an eye before bringing it back. That song, backed onto ‘1:16’ creates a wonderful medley of music that packs subtle power into three and a half minutes. It’s remarkable stuff and clearly demonstrates why John has acolytes like Ryley and Bill. But there are no bum notes here and the album plays wonderfully easily and gently demands a re-spin, because there are moods and nuances that will take several listens to fully understand and digest. It’s also a perfect introduction to John Hulburt before you dip into the more expansive Opus III, which, of course, you absolutely should.
Order via Bandcamp
Read Nick Dellar’s review of Opus III here