excuse me sir. do you have a minute to talk about john fahey? (red cross disciple of christ today)

today begins fahey week with the 15th anniversary of his death. it will end sunday the 28th with the anniversary of his birth (and co-incidentally the anniversary of the death of robbie basho).

fahey is the main inspiration for what horsemouth does when he does musical things. his effect on horsemouth when he isn’t doing or making things is more difficult to quantify - perhaps fahey’s silences, his years of not releasing music, count also.

this time horsemouth will begin at the end.

horsemouth begins by listening to red cross disciple of christ today as he types this. it is from fahey’s last ‘electric’ years - his late style. its title taken from the text of a sermon by the reverend moses mason recorded in alabama between 1927 and 1934, its subject the mississippi floods of 1927.



the reverend moses sermon is immediate the biblical lands and people overlay and appear again in the south and in the context of the flood (very phillip k. dick) - he wants to take us to the moment of panic, to the rising water, to the calling out to god for salvation. fahey keeps some of the intonation of this, some of the bends and swoops but it is more meditative, we are back at a distance from events.

the usual reading of fahey’s late style is that he could no longer play the complicated fingerpicked acoustic stuff anymore - that it is a music of debility. horsemouth contemplates the arthritis most apparent in the little finger of his right hand but apparent also in his left - it is ok to change one’s style as one gets older, to be smart as to how one communicates musically when one gets older. music is not entirely about speed and precision and skill and musical technique - it can be about using what you have learned to still make something satisfying even after the old avenues are closed off to you.

more tomorrow...