Parallelograms

Kapp Records released Linda Perhacs' sole album in 1970, just as the label was shutting down. Perhacs, who'd been a Los Angeles dental technician prior to her discovery by film composer Leonard Rosenman (who also provided the futuristic electronic rumbles and drones that color several tracks), simply went back to her day job. After the burgeoning alt-folk underground discovered Parallelograms in the late '90s, a protracted search for the mysterious singer-songwriter finally located her, leading to the album's first authorized (and properly remastered) reissue in 2003. But unlike many supposed "lost classics" whose charms evaporate as soon as they're no longer obscure fetish objects, Parallelograms is a genuine psych-folk masterpiece. Too often compared to Joni Mitchell, Perhacs' adventurous bent is more in keeping with Tim Buckley: the bracingly odd title track and the hypnotic "Moons and Cattails," both featuring able support from noted jazz percussionists Milt Holland and Shelly Manne, would fit comfortably on Buckley's experimental masterpiece Starsailor. But even when it's mostly just Perhacs and her guitar, the lyrics betray a novelist's eye for setting and detail (see the devastatingly snide "Porcelain Baked Over Cast-Iron Wedding") and the tunes are far more complex than the usual hippie noodling.