Scott Seskind - Scott Seskind

Scott Seskind
Scott Seskind
Ebalunga!!!
USA/Austria, 1985/2023
LP

A cult classic of private press loner folk, recorded to a humble Tascam four-track in 1985 but sounding more like a forgotten treasure from the late ‘60s or ‘70s. Compared to its follow-up, Chance (also just reissued), there’s a restless nerviness to certain tunes that suggests an acid folk edge, recalling Roky Erickson or Rodriguez, as well as a soul still young enough to be bruised easily by the world’s injustices. As he opens “Bobby Sands”: “Well I don’t know ‘bout you but I’m a bit surprised / at how much pain we allow in people’s lives.” He’s neither one for overstatement or one to act too knowing, every bit as forthright as he’d go on to be on Chance, just from a slightly more restricted vantage point—a restriction that permits its own ways of knowing.