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Rainbows From Atoms (Dischord, 1993) started a progression towards
a unique, personal style
(Mother Made Me, You Might Ask Me What, Fresh Air Cure).
The two best songs on Pass And Stow (Dischord, 1994)
are typical of what makes Lungfish unique: passion, urgency,
commitment to the cause and musical values:
Computer is anthemic in a way that punk-rock never was, more like
a Gandhi speech than a Johnny Lydon rant, and Evidence is a carefully
assembled ballad whose psychological depth is akin to folk.
Mature songwriting is wed to mature composing.
Daniel Higgs' sociopolitical philophizing is hosted in a groundbreaking,
elastic style.
And this is not to say that the tension has relaxed:
The fierce drama of Highway Sweetheart,
Cleaner Than Your Surroundings and Washing Away
still relies on relentless drumming and riffing and screaming.
Signpost is the highlight of
Sound In Time (Dischord, 1996), a song that floats in the dark, menacing
ether of Lungfish's sound, where a rugged soundscape mirrors a decaying moral
landscape.
Higgs is beginning to sound like a tormented prophet with
religious overtones (Jonah).
Indivisible (Dischord, 1997) marks a musical departure or at least
a quantum leap forward in that Higgs and his cohorts fall under the spell of
Indian raga, Tibetan mantras and Velvet Underground's psychedelic trance
(Indivisible).
That hypnotic style was only the beginning.
Artificial Horizon (Dischord, 1998) ranks with the austere compositions
of minimalism, thanks to drummer Mitch Feldstein and bassist Nathan Bell
(who replaced Sean Meadows), besides Asa Osborne's sitar-like drones.
At the same time, Higgs' religious, political and personal themes intersect
and become one.
Pray For The Living, Slip Of Existence and
Love Will Ruin Your Mind are among the most powerful and original
structures yet invented by rock music to deliver meaning.
But the line between genius and idiocy is terribly thin.
Repetition becomes tedious on Unanimous Hour (Dischord, 1999), that
often sounds like the band has nothing to say not like the band has created
a new style.
Suddenly, the magic is gone and what is left is only a cheap trick.
Necrophones (Dischord, 2000) makes amend, adding a little dynamics
and a little texture to monoliths like Shapes In Space.
Love Is Love (Dischord, 2004) is just a vehicle for Higgs' lyrics,
which is a curse, like all music produced by songwriters who think they
are great lyricists when in fact they are only good (not great) singers
for a good (not great) band. The band, in turn, plays as heavy and loud as a
post-hardcore band can play.
The effect is occasionally hypnotic but, most often, simply tedious.
Feral Hymns (Dischord, 2005) continued to focus on those two elements:
Higgs' lyrics and the band's heavy sound.
After relocating to the Bay Area, Daniel Higgs
debuted solo with Magic Alphabet (Northern Liberties, 2004),
a cycle of songs for solo jews harp. It was his way to finally vent the
spirituality that could not fully come out on Lungfish releases.
Higgs transformed into a singer-songwriter with the cassette
Plays The Mirror Of The Apocalypse And Other Songs (Open Mouth, 2006),
the prelude to his mature phase.
His second solo CD, Ancestral Songs (Holy Mountain, 2006), contained
six psalms of transcendental psychedelia for
guitar, banjo, jew's harp, toy piano and voice,
imbued with esoteric religious imagery:
the spectral Living in the Kingdom of Death,
the ten-minute Thy Chosen Bride for banjo and voice, etc.
The jew's harp returns to haunt his meditations in Moharsing and Schoenhut and Time-Ship of the Demogorgon.
Much of the album was born at the intersection of
simple repetitive hypnotic acoustic guitar riffs and
shaman-like invocations.
Higgs the alien troubadour perfected his fusion of India and Appalachia on
the six instrumental pieces of
Atomic Yggdrasil Tarot (Thrill Jockey, 2007), his guitar ragas
(Cocoon on the Cross) and banjo ragas (Luminous Carcass Ornament, Hems & Seams) merging
Sandy Bull and
Robbie Basho,
and sometimes even
Helios Creed's space-rock
(Creation Moan).
And, as usual, the jew's harp adds further depth and color to the proceedings
(Spectral Hues).
Metempsychotic Memories (Holy Mountain, 2007) added the
14-minute Love Abides, whose solemn poetry evoked
the transcendental hymns of Robbie Basho (despite
a completely different voice), as well as
the instrumentals Universal Salutation and Leontocephaline Rhapsody.
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