Parallelograms

by Richie UnterbergerProbably this came out in the early 1970s when it was first issued on Kapp (the songs are copyrighted 1970); it was reissued by The Wild Places on CD in 1998. Joni Mitchell's first albums, particularly her first (largely solo acoustic) one, will be instantly evoked by the spare and isolated feel of the songs and the production, not to mention the melodies, guitar playing, and singing. It's not a photocopy, however; it's hard to imagine Joni singing "I'm spacing out, I'm seeing silences between leaves, " as Perhacs does on "Chimacum Rain," unless Mitchell got spiked with acid right before getting onstage. In addition, Perhacs is adept at dropping unusual effects and arrangements into the mix on occasion that have a mildly disquieting and psychedelic vibe. Back to "Chimacum Rain," for example: double-tracked voices get into a slightly hypnotic, disorienting swirl, and suddenly move into a half-chanted section with doomy background notes from hard-to-identify instruments. "Parallelograms" is a round-like vocal (again with multi-track voices), consisting of exactly eight words, that without warning goes into creepy washes of electronically distorted voices, flutes, and rattles. Not all of the record is weird, though; much of it's just attractively wistful, moody singer-songwriter folk, sometimes with an engaging folk-jazz backup, sometimes just with a guitar, sometimes enlivened by creative smudges of organ and electric guitar. It is not currently fashionable to rediscover these kind of subdued early-seventies singer-songwriter albums, but if and when these sorts of overlooked recordings begin to get attention, Parallelograms will almost certainly become a cult favorite.