Tonight's listen:Heitkotter - Black OrckidOn the surface, Stephen David Heitkotter's sole album sounds like nothing more than some sloppy lo-fi blues jamming by a few stoners. However, the liner notes included with this expanded reissue reveal that it was actually the product of a deeply troubled mind. Heitkotter's early musical career as drummer for Fresno garage band the Roadrunners showed promise, but by the end of the 60's he was addicted to speed and showing signs of paranoid schizophrenia. Around 1971 he recruited a couple local musicians to help him put some ideas to tape. One quotation in the booklet describes the sound as "muttered stoned demented words with grunge proto bluesy free crude guitar", while another concludes "The only place this record leads is to the grave". Perhaps slightly hyperbolic, but it's certainly menacing, meandering, disoriented, and disjointed. Heitkotter drones like a mush-mouthed Lou Reed and molests his guitar (having given up the drums by this point), while the other players try in vain to follow along with a musical vision which undoubtedly made more sense in his head. It slips through your fingers if you try to grasp it. Bottom line, this is music to have the worst trip of your life to. Supposedly he was certain that the album, pressed in a quantity as miniscule as 25 copies, would lead him on the path to stardom, which is just as damning an indictment of his mental state as the music within. Stephen's condition worsened over the decade, and by the end of it he was committed to an institution where he died in 2018. The CD reissue of the album, retitled Black Orckid after the moniker Heitkotter used for painting, is bolstered by five fuzzed-out instrumentals and a particularly disturbed-sounding untitled track. Not one for the faint of heart or short of patience.7.1/10https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOuhLaxcRcY
>>130014611ACTUAL schizocore, nice
>>130014881Eat your heart out, Syd Barrett
I half-expected this review would be dead on arrival between the mega-obscure subject and the dull colours in the photoI guess I'll do something more well-known next time, recs welcome as alwaysSome recent requests were Kinks and Walker Brothers, so maybe one of those tomorrow
Bump to get us through the night
>>130014611these threads are the opposite of kpop general
>>130015235Could also be because the album sucks despite the lore and you failed to explain why you gave it a 7/10
