PHILIP JOHN LEWIN “DIAMOND LOVE AND OTHER REALTIES” SEALED

PHILIP JOHN LEWIN “DIAMOND LOVE AND OTHER REALTIES” (CANADIAN GARGOYLE) 1976 SEALED… A MUST OWN RECORD!

A-side here is pretty beastly. late-nite loungey 70s SSW fare with a jazzy/funky flare done to perfection. in some strange time-space filter it comes out sounding vividly real vs. dated/cheesy. he lets the tracks really drift… I haven’t heard alot of stuff like this. can’t quite tell yet how I feel about the more trad folkier stuff side 2… A Friend of Mine / Hanging Around Waiting are both shorter songs in a Dylan-ish angry folk mold and kinda of break the spell you’re under after the stoney looseness that leads up to it. he gets back to it on “Other Realities” and “Drummers Lament” and even though the re-connect isn’t quite there, all over its a pretty spooky record. the guy is definitely a head, and definitely a weird cat and I really dig where he took this ethereal midnight spaced lounge jazz stuff. like Justen O’Brien + Jake it quickly becomes a much heavier record than you had initially imagined… Toni, the gal vocalist is fabulously cool and lets notes go flat and plays it stoned natural realness.Like tripping with your middle aged neighbor after he’s been through a divorce. mature and sensitive but still pretty weird.