‘An intimate unedited solo live performance recorded at Phill Niblock’s Experimental Intermedia Foundation in Downtown NYC on 12/20/85. Arthur titled this performance Open Vocal Phrases, Where Songs Come In and Out. He would later edit sections from this performance merging it with studio material recorded at Battery Sound to finalize the World of Echo album released in 1986.’
“Some of it sounds so pure and clear and I am picturing him huddled around all that gear, simply magical. In my memory he didn’t play “for” the audience but was rather trying to perfect these various permutations of sound within himself…and a few of us just happened to be present” - Tom Lee
The double vinyl LP includes the complete nineteen-minutes-plus version of Tower of Meaning/Rabbit’s Ear/Home Away along with the previously unreleased songs That’s The Very Reason and Too Early To Tell. Also two instrumental tracks from Sketches For World Of Echo, originally published in 2020 as a cassette.
The double CD includes both Open Vocal Phrases and Sketches For World Of Echo, in full.
Terrific new folk music from Dublin. Try the opener, the travellers’ song What Will We Do When We Have No Money? And the centre-piece, the furiously inward-turned immigrant song, Déanta in Éireann. The Granite Gaze… killer.
Hotly recommended.
‘The compilation that started the renaissance… twelve tracks of Buddhist Bubblegum Alt Disco Pop recorded during Arthur’s prime years 1985-90.’
Twenty-one songs, running right back to 1971: assured, lovely, intelligent, good-humoured singer-songwriting, mixing up Americana, folk, pop, art rock, and gentle experimentalism.