Considering the last UK artist that Tompkins Square presented to us was Gwenifer Raymond who delivered her second label offering only recently with ‘Strange Lights Over Garth Mountain‘ – one of Glenn Kimpton’s Top 10 Albums of 2020, you can pretty much guarantee that any other artist they choose to put out on the label is a worthy listen. From the complex, unpredictable, multi-layered compositions of Raymond, we head into cosmic psych country with Bobby Lee.
You’d swear this was from the cabin floor rather than Sheffield, recorded to four-track tape, the two tracks previewed to date from his forthcoming album Origin Myths are real gems. Fire Medicine Man is, right down to the drum machine, JJ Cale territory shone through a kaleidoscopic prism while Impregnated By Drops of Rainbow turns beautifully expansive and hints at the breadth of vision that makes this new offering so enticing.
While the label isn’t giving away too much (see below), Origin Myths is out soon on March 5th digital, May 7th vinyl LP (TSQ 5821) but based on just these two tracks, I think I’ll be making this a vinyl purchase.
Bobby Lee trades in a wide screen brand of cosmic country-folk, full of space and pawn shop guitars. There are touches of JJ Cale’s analogue Americana, the swampy groove of Tony Joe White and Richard Thompson’s sinewy, modal guitar work. Amps hum in the warm afternoon sun, kids and dogs snooze on the grass and broken drum machines keep time with the universe…Open sky/scorched earth improvisations recorded to four track tape during the rare moments of solitude afforded by lockdown and early fatherhood. Bobby Lee’s “worn-denim psych-country” remains, but the ancestral spirits of Ashra, Popol Vuh and Terry Riley are present here too. Time and technological limitations have been embraced. A song dreamt up, tracked and mixed in an afternoon, never to be tampered with again. Imperfections allowed to stand; knowing that nothing is ever truly finished. The Bob Ross school of philosophy.
Photo Credit: Laura Merrill