Drag City is to reissue California Sigh, guitarist Lee Underwood‘s 1988 solo album. Anyone familiar with Tim Buckley’s folk-rock output will find Lee’s name in the liner notes, including Buckley’s post-Sgt. Pepper statement album Goodbye and Hello. However, it’s the allure of the psycho-spiritual world that led to Lee’s 1988 debut, which he co-produced with Steve Roach.
Roach made his breakthrough with Structures from Silence in 1984, a progressive electronic album influenced by the likes of Vangelis. While Roach’s synthesisers feature on this album and can be heard on Lee’s ‘Quietude Oasis‘, the first single released from the California Sigh, it is a far more acoustic affair, with synth adding shades of colour – the sound of waves lapping along a shore. Anyone who enjoys today’s rich Cosmic Americana scene will no doubt love this release. Watch the accompanying visualiser below on which Lee’s guitar is, to quote the label, “heavily draped with marvellous lengths of reverberance, is recast from its organic impressionist form into a sequence of gorgeous sonic abstractions.”
Drag City California Sigh as an obscure but fascinating work that reflects his passion for the great outdoors. Sampling Mother Nature’s cool breezes and glistening waterways across the album, Lee paints with broad acoustic strokes and zephyr-like fingerpicking to lull us into contemplation — decorated by Steve Roach’s synthesisers, Chas Smith’s pedal steel, and Kevin Braheny Fortune’s soprano sax. Now re-discovered and remastered for vinyl and digital platforms, Lee Underwood’s California Sigh is here for us all on June 28, 2024!
Pre-Order/Save: https://lnk.to/californiasigh
