Vinyl edition of this excellent tribute to the American Primitive genius of the late Robbie Basho from a bunch of players with a deep connection to the source including Glenn Jones, Steffen Basho-Junghans, Helena Espvall (Ghost/Espers), Meg Baird (Espers), Arborea, Fern Knight, Cian Nugent and Rahim AlHaj. Buncha female vocal tracks are particularly choice here, highlighting Basho’s gift as a highly idiosyncratic singer as well as a visionary instrumentalist. Dedicated to the memory of Jack Rose. 180g vinyl, edition of 300 copies. 

Major archival unearthing of what was the late Robbie Basho’s last solo guitar recording and last album of original compositions: originally rejected by all of Basho’s previous labels, Twilight Peaks was issued in 1985 by the obscure ‘New Age’ cassette label Vital Body Marketing as part of the label’s Art Of Relaxation series, where it promptly sank into the void, being only available via shops specialising in scented candles, crystals, books on astrology etc and with very limited distribution. As such it has become the holy grail of Basho fanciers, even as the original cassette edition suffered from the excessive post-production application of reverb done at the behest of the label in a bid to make it sound more ‘relaxed’. Guitarist Glenn Jones had started corresponding with Basho in the late 70s when Jones reviewed his Visions Of The Country and over the year was privy to the many demos and re-workings that would eventually give birth to Twilight Peaks. For this new edition Jones has re-mastered the recordings from Basho’s final version of the cassette. And it sounds fantastic. Everything that made Basho such a compulsively fascinating artist is writ large, tumults of rolling chords, odd melancholy/triumphal melodies, sudden shifts of compositional perception, ethereal drones, that deep feeling of quest – for knowledge of God, for enlightenment – the soft, hypnotic quality of the compositions, the feel of a voice behind the technique, what Jones calls “a romantic grandeur”, “Kingdom Of Love” even sees a rare outing for *those* weird/post-Buckley vocals...... in the liners Jones quotes Basho as saying he was shooting for “one good guitar album to go out on”, a poignant and puzzling thought that his death at the hands of his chiropractor in 1986 lends a frisson of prophecy, as if Basho somehow knew that Twilight Peaks would function as his last shot and so he intended to get it all down once and for all. Beautifully presented with in-depth sleeves notes from Jones and guitarist Richard Osborn and two bonus CD-only live tracks, this is the Guitar Soli release of the year. Highly recommended.