John (studio album) by John Phillips (ZW)

From Jameth 05/18/2019 07:06

Fantastic album, especially “Bird With Plastic Feathers”. It’s supposedly being reissued sometime this year, along with his other albums. Keep an eye out.

From Mercury 10/19/2017 20:12

Taken from my forum thread on albums and stuff this is a more complete and overlong review of this great album:

This is one of those things which almost seems to good to be true. I mean, this album is stunning, mesmerizing, completely overwhelming for me personally. Yet, this is also an album which has almost no associated info, the artist is a near-total mystery, the album is almost completely lost to the world. How can something this pristine be so overlooked?

I know there are thousands of stories like this, albums which are incredible, artists which are so talented and yet are oppressed or ignored for various reasons through history. But experiencving this album finally drove home how vulnerable and precious art and artistic expression is.

Musically, this album is a delicate 35 minute experience with in the main John Phillips, his guitar and some tamboruine and some other instrumentation to fill it up. The lyrics are densitive, stunning, at times funny and at times incredibly incisive. The guitar work is first rate. Phillips sounds like he was classically trained at times, the picking is sharp and beautiful. His singing is sweet, and intimate, kind of like a "breathy" whispery style most of the times, in the same vein as Jackson C Frank, Nick Drake, Stuart Murdoch and other music nerd faves. And the compositions and songs are all, and I mean all, fabulous and just absolutely beautiful.

Now I liked this a lot on first listen. But I kept coming back to it, over and over. Again, it seemed too good. Surely, this was good in comparison to its status, surely I was blowing up the quality of this album in my head due to how relatively unknown it was, it can't be really THAT good. That was what I was thinking I'd conclude on subsequent listens. Well, it never happened. I am listening again now, and it shimmers and fills my heart with life and my mind with big ideas even now - and perhaps more than ever - on my 20th or so listen.

The stand out tracks are the utterly beautiful opener "Ballad of a Tall Man" (Jackson C Frank-level gorgeous), the oh so seductive and subtly dark, Proto-Elliott Smith song "Peppermint Wind", the incisive and surprisingly virtuosic guitar instrumental "The Rock", the absolutely absurdly catchy, cutting and twee genius of "Paint Box Jester" (this one really reminds me of some lost Belle and Sebastian classic), the excellent closing track "Look At The Time Fly", the heartbreaking tale of a little girl who lost her hands in a bombing in the song "Permutation Child", the absolutely stunning floating reassuring pick-me-up "Whisper To The Wind" etc.

And I really mean it when i say "etc" cuz there is not a bad song here. The album starts with 6 tracks which absolutely slay and drop my jaw with how great it is. The middle portion goes more in the direction of magical, donovan-esque fantasy lyrics and is more of an enchanting experience. Its great during the middle portion, but not as stunning as the beginning. But then the album closes 5 straight perfect songs starting with Whisper To the Wind" through "Sylvia" (SYLVIA! How have I not yet mentioned Sylvia?! Its one of the most beautiful folk songs I've ever heard) and continues to the end with Permutation Child and Look At The Time Fly.

As a closing point on this, honestly if you love Nick Drake, Belle and Sebastian, Jackson C Frank, acoustic Elliott Smith, folk music, dreamy ballads of sheer heaven, or music in general (which is most of us here) I think you'll really love this. It also has a distinctly DIY, lo fi style, this is just amateur enough with its fun little triangle-exploits and home recording vibes to keep the fun coming. That last part didn't make much sense. And outside of the otherwise stunning "Mulberry Avenue" there is very little in the way of rough, scratchy, old-worn-out-record sounds on this album.

From Mercury 10/03/2017 05:04

This album is just absolutely incredible. I think its maybe too good to be true. I saw this album on RYM with some ratings, I was curious due to the name, thinking "That's not a John Phillips album that I know of!". And sure enough its a different person. Now, exact details of the album I have not found. On Discogs a user named capttripps made this comment

"I am lucky enough to own a copy of this amazing LP. One of only three copies that have surfaced so far in the entire world. Thirteen original songs featuring sparce but clearly psychedelic instrumentation including occasional flute tabla and finger cymbals. Vocals and lyrics are reminiscent of Syd Barett, Arthur Lee, Donovan et.al. Very little is known about John. He was a pale skinned Zimbabwean who also happened to be a transexual living in South Africa's repressive apartheid regime. Apparently maybe less than 200 copies were pressed and of those many were seized and destroyed by security police. Plans are a foot to do a reissue sometime in the near future, so keep your eyes and ears open for further news."

Now that sounds interesting. And whatever the true data on the origin of this album, I can say its just about as great as it gets - Nick Drake similarities are abundant. The guitar playing vocals and lyrics and atmosphere are all very similar to Nick Drake. But there is so much deatiled guitar playing here, and the melodies are mesmerizing, and I just love it! Check it out. Its streaming on yt.