Glenn Jones x John Fahey

For whatever reason, John Fahey has become a part of current musical trends after a few decades in the recesses of whatever Americana became in the ‘80s. Of course his guitar style is and should always be lauded, but there are a great many newer acts that have sought to incorporate the ghost of Fahey into their own work – I’m lookin’ at you Ben Chasney. If only they’d started a bit earlier, it may have been reasonable to attempt some sort of project with Fahey. But of course, his death in 2001 has precluded that.

But during the period of time before Fahey returned to recorded work and experimenting with electric guitars, he found a more than sympathetic ear in the personage of Glenn Jones.

Coming out of the Boston music scene, Jones and Robin Amos sought to make Cul-de-Sac something of a musical homage in a strictly instrumental sense. As with many groups of the time, Cul-de-Sac sought refuge in music that they believed was more authentic than anything sitting atop the charts. Of course, at roughly the same time, Nirvana was poised to become the biggest rock band the world had seen in a good many years. But Jones was more smitten with outsider guitar music and krautrock with its endlessly lopping beats that seemingly could fall into themselves and continue on forever.

The band began with the 1991 ECIM – that’s ‘mice’ spelled backwards. And immediately, “Death Kit Train” announced the band’s allegiance to obscure, repetitive German psych bands of decades past. But in such an authentic and emotionally wrought performance was sewn the roots of future collaborations with Damo Suzuki (former lead singer of German band Can) and the aforementioned Fahey.

It wasn’t until the 1997 release of The Epiphany of Glenn Jones that the band would work with the guitarist. And oddly enough, because of Jones’ adherence to Fahey’s style, it’s at times difficult to figure who’s doing what. This disc too signaled a departure from previous efforts. Where other discs from Cul-de-Sac where stripped down psych influenced work outs, Epiphany sounded like a backwoods guitar player stumbling into a brand new recording studio. The supplemental sound effects lend ample backing for the two guitarists mischief throughout as well as an ethereal creepiness not easily found else where on record.

The two inclusions of Gamelan references on Epiphany also signaled the ever broadening and academic outlook that band members had in regards to music. There’s always something new to discover, something from a different culture or time that can so easily mesh with whatever music one seeks to create that even the idea is instantly gratifying in its expanses.

Subsequent to these cooperative sessions, Fahey delved into the twilight of his career, not knowing that the end was near. But even despite that fact, he turned in a great deal of interesting work – perhaps not as historically important or even as listenable. But For Jones and his group to seemingly spur on an idol such as Fahey, must have been as rewarding as the act of recording with the legend.