Pip Proud
One of These Days
Emperor Jones / Trance Syndicate

I'm not sure at what point Emperor Jones took over the fragile gossamer pop mantle (or from whom for that matter), but they are keeping their hand held high. Add now to the roster of Alastair Galbraith, American Analog Set, and Peter Jefferies (and soon the very chilling institutionalized-era Roky Erickson private recordings) Mister Pip Proud, who deserves equal aural space with each of these folks, and actually belongs more in Mr. Erickson's stratum, since he has been recording since the late 60s, far from public eyes.

With this sort of new hindsight that Emperor Jones provides, we can see pulled clean-out- the-fertile-ground-of-New Zealand Mr. Galbraith's haunting white roots, lo-fi dirt and stringy guitar root hairs clinging and swinging in the thin hands of Pip's plink and murmur of thirty years previous. An introduction to both me and yourself, One of These Days gives a small peek into the closet shoe-box of Mr. Proud's, chock-full of whispered pop splendors (each song a case study on the majesty of tape hiss in all its different voices), snapshots and scrawled lines, and handfuls of his little un's artwork (I had a postage stamp in mine as well).

All interested parties should seek out the Half-a-Cow CD from '96, as well as the EJ 7", Hey Gus, with Mr. Galbraith himself.

Copyright © 1998 Andy Beta