Sunday, May 9, 2010

NZ MUSIC MONTH #2: Waves, S/T (1975)


I have given it much consideration and this is, without a doubt, my favourite folk album ever.
I think all record collectors and lovers of music generally will agree that it is a rare for an album to have only good tracks on it. In fact if an album has more than even one good track it is already in something like the top 5% of all albums ever.  Complete, flawless albums are much discussed and rarely agreed upon - even the White Album had stupid bloody "Ob-la-di Ob-la-da" on it. Even "Illmatic" had "Life's a Bitch" in there to soil the sheets.

So, such albums are rare, but this is one of them. It is a superb set of songs, mainly arranged around acoustic guitar and percussion, excellently performed and ever so delicately dusted with studio effects for a light psychadelic glaze. It is exceptionally tasteful.

This is the band's only LP and there is not a lot of information available on-line - apparently they did a re-union gig a few years ago (while I was living in Japan, unfortunately). Criminally, "Waves" has never been re-issued - and given that the last second-hand copy I saw in the wild was going for a cool hundy, I considered it a urgent matter of cultural improvement that a recording be made available from the link below: 

Waves - self-titled album

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