This mysterious three-LP box set first appeared in 2006 courtesy of HP Cycle Records. The press materials claim that the original records were privately pressed with very limited distribution and found their way to the label by chance. Any further information about the relationship between the three albums is unclear though it’s apparent they are the work of the same artist (or group). It would be easy for the music collected here to fall short of the expectations created by this kind of mythologizing, but unlike a lot of other “outsider” releases, these records are as listenable as they are strange.
Live at Rainbows End – credited to C.C. – is the strongest and most straightforward record in the set. The first eight tracks are spare, acoustic folk songs; the artist croons dark and impenetrable lyrics over gently plucked acoustic guitar. These tunes might sit well on a mix tape alongside similarly melancholy singer-songwriters like Nick Drake or Elliot Smith, but the darkness here is far more palpable than anything recorded by either of those famously tortured troubadours. The lyrics don’t make much sense, but are filled with sorrowful, sometimes violent imagery. Songs like this can very easily feel overwrought but this album is so frighteningly intimate that any conventional standards of restraint don’t seem to apply.
In its own fractured way, Live at Rainbows End can be pretty catchy, too. The artist never sounds as conventionally pretty as the aforementioned Drake or Smith, but still manages to deliver a consistently captivating performance throughout. I’m tempted to draw comparisons to Syd Barrett’s acid-damaged psych-folk, but further comparisons belie the singularity of this record.
There is a uniquely insular quality to these recordings that I find endlessly fascinating. I’m almost ashamed to say that over the course of a few days I listened to “Worn” – the album’s penultimate track – literally sixty-three times. But not every track on the album bears repeated listening; the ninth and final cut is a fifteen-minute field recording of long periods of tape noise punctuated with some distant voices and slapping sounds. There’s not much happening and I can’t recommend listening to this more than once out of sheer curiosity if you have fifteen minutes you don’t mind giving up.
The other two records in the set are a bit spottier. The first side of Boots runs in a similar vein to Live at Rainbows End, though it’s an even darker affair. The lyrics, while still inscrutable, are more overtly sinister, taking on an almost threatening quality when paired with the artist’s passionate delivery. In nearly every way, Boots is raw and scrappy where the C.C. recordings are fragile and delicate. I assume the vocals are by the same artist, though they’re quite a bit less refined here. While I hear shades of Bowie in the singer’s inflections at times, Bowie never sounded this raw. Even the strongest melodies here are derailed with bum notes and cracked yelps. The chorus of side one closer “I’m A Farm” incorporates disgruntled, shrieking donkey impersonations, a gimmick that might sound unintentionally hilarious (or at least pretentious) on another record but here comes across as genuinely disturbing in the context of all that comes before.
The flip side of the record is an eighteen-minute percussion and electronics free-noise excursion. It’s not for everybody, but if you managed to get through the first side without shutting your stereo off in horror, you can probably dig “New Earth” too. You have to be patient with it, but it certainly has its own rewards. Personally, I’m a fan of a lot of early analog New Age music, which this track clearly owes a strong debt to. There’s no new ground being broken, but it works as a much-needed palate cleanser after the unflinchingly raw first side.
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