My musical radar must be seriously on the blink. In the 37 years since it was released it has never picked up the astral rays of Perry Leopold. It’s not a name that sounds very rock’n’roll but it’s one I’m sure I would have remembered. I’m indebted to to the generous Blogshare of Time has Told Me for access to the two albums by the man -‘Experiment In Metaphysics’ from 1970 and ‘Christian Lucifer’ from 1973. The equally inprobably named Stanton Swilton of All Music Guide mantains the second of these is his masterpiece as it’s a more consistent whole – the songs on the first he says were great but “didn’t quite hold together“.
But this is Acid Folk maaaaaaan – and since when has a genre founded on the principle that the artist is fried and floating in some other dimension meant to produce albums that hold together. Fuck balance and structure – ‘Experiment in Metaphysics’ is the one! Nothing on the second (which, don’t get me wrong, is genius too) can hold an candle to the opening track on ‘Experiment. ‘The Absurb Paranoid’ has just the most delicious melody that melts you immediately and breaks midway into an earnest monologue about Jesus, Buddha and other metaphysical cats and lines like “Come in and meet yourself – look at the walls of the universe” that are beyond parody. Track two continues the hippy jivetalk wherein Perry sings “No money and no stash, came to Philadelphia, I need a place to crash“. Sure, it’s dated and all but that’s what makes it such a gem. The title track and a number called ‘And Then the Snow Came’ are luminous instrumentals with spiralling lunar blues guitar picking that would make Matt Valentine weep.
Apparently the private press of this album ran to around 300 copies most of which, legend has it, were given away and now fetch $1000 plus on E-bay. Do yourself a favour and grab for significantly less right now – you won’t regret it.
