In a post I marked for later last month but only recently checked was this album by Lewis aka Randall Wulff. It’s amazing, and easily has become one of my favourite albums of recent times but it was recorded 31 years ago. It’s a strange story, of outsider music on a private press, a man whose family made money in the Alberta oil rush but was dwindling by the early 80’s…so what does Lewis do? Go to L.A. to make an album and release it himself.
The music is a mix of new age, ambient and soul – it sounds so current, it could be How To Dress Well or James Blake if he could sing rather than do a walrus impression – and was very much ahead of it’s time. The label that was doing the re-issue tracked the guy down after several years, and it turns out he wants to keep private and doesn’t want any royalties or attention. Curiouser and curiouser. If this is a hoax, it’s a very good and rather involved one, but it seems genuine.
You can hear the album over at Stereogum, and buy it as I did over at Light In The Attic.
EDIT it turns out there is a third ‘blues’ album by ‘Randy Duke’ who seems to be also Lewis. This is getting ridonkulous…although the way other outsider artists like Daniel Johnston, the Space Lady etc were discovered and their output it’s not unknown. Seems like this guy is the new Jandek? I have a feeling more albums will come to light…like this track is apparently from an album called ‘Hawaiian Breeze’, although some of the other stuff sounds so John Martyn I start to wonder if this IS a hoax…
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