JOHN FAHEY - Proofs & Refutations [lp]

Recorded in 1995 and
1996, mostly in John
Fahey's room at a Salem,
Oregon boardinghouse, the
performances on "Proofs and
Refutations" prefigure the
ornery turn of the page that
marked Fahey's final years, drawing
another enigmatic rabbit from his
seemingly bottomless musical hat.
Cloaked in the language of dogma
-- what is he proving? refuting?
-- this is Fahey dancing a jig in
the Duchampian gap, jester cap
bells a-jingling. True believers?
He's got something for you: an
uncompromising vision that you
can sneer at ("guy can't play
anymore and refuses to concede!") or embrace
as evidence of his genius ("the reinventor
does it again!"). Skeptics? He's there with
you, too: sending up the fallacy of certitudes
altogether. Institutions, systems, accepted
wisdoms. Heroes. Alternative facts, indeed.
Right out of the gate, Fahey re-materializes
before us, somewhere between Oracle of Delphi and
Clown Prince at Olympus. Mounting a thundering
dialectic from on high, "All the Rains" resembles
nothing else in his extensive discography --
betraying roots in everything from Dada to
Episcopal liturgical chant -- and contains nary
a plucked guitar note. You can't fool him! When
the lap steel of yore appears on "F for Fake," it
serves more as soundbed for an extended sequence
of vocal improvisations, running the gamut from
wordless Bashoian caterwauling to free-form
(but decidedly fake) Tuvan, even revealing a
burnished falsetto in the process. Fahey takes
on a different kind of provocation in the two
acoustic guitar-based tracks closing Side 1 --
"Morning" parts 1 and 2 --
the first of 4 recordings
in this session that have
him wrestling with the
ghost of Skip James, perhaps
Fahey's effort to wrench the
"bitter, hateful old creep"
(his words) back into the grave.
Anchoring Side 2 is the two-part
"Evening, Not Night," the second
half of his extended cathexis on
James (and the latter's avowed
castration complex -- another story
for another day, perhaps). Bit
of a chill in the air -- where's
the impish Fahey from earlier?
Unmistakably working through some
psychic wounds here, we might
think: the unheimlich rendered in glistening
viscera. Or is he playing with our notions of
authenticity, of his reputation as troubadour of
raw emotional states, a pilgrim of the ominous,
the simmering unconscious? These cards are
kept decidedly close to the vest. The opening
and closing pieces again feature Fahey's guitar
as drone soundbed -- employing distortion,
oscillation, and an altogether absurd quotient
of reverb to create texture and harmonics that
are -- if we wanna go there -- not dissimilar
to the sustained tonic clusters of Tibetan
singing bowls, the hurdy gurdy, Hindustani
classical music, or La Monte freaking Young.
Portions of this material appeared on
obscure late '90s vinyl in the 7" or double-78
rpm format, but as a "session" it has lain
dormant more than a quarter century now.
Taken together, we can now see these tracks
as secret blueprints to latter-day Fahey
provocations, several years prior to records
like 1997's "City of Refuge" and "Womblife."

Vinyl release of John Fahey - Proofs & Refutations [lp]. Released through DRAG CITY and available on LP.