LINDA PERHACS

American singer songwriter with a voice and style reminiscent of Joni Mitchell's Blue period, Anne Wilson's acoustic torch singer side, and early Suzanne Vega. She has one of those voices that would vault her into the pantheon of the best female folk singers à la Joni, Judy Collins, Maddy Prior, Sandy Denny, Jacqui McShee, Judy Dyble, Barbara Gaskin, Clodagh Simonds, Amanda Parsons, Máire Brennan, Loreena McKennitt, and Tirill Mohn.

1. "Chimacum Rain" (3:20) great introduction to such a clear, pristine sound recording. Linda's breathy, airy vocal approach is an immediate winner--but then you get the multi-track injections of other voices to augment the "rain" word. Gorgeous! Then there is a shift at 1:40 to a different motif that sounds like Suzanne Vega until the eerie psychedelic elements bring in an ANNETTE PEACOCK feel. Definitely a top three song. (9.25/10)

2. "Paper Mountain Man" (3:10) blues. Not my favorite. (8.333/10)

3. "Dolphin" (2:53) a moving, angelic vocal performance. (8.875/10)

4. "Call of the River" (3:46) opens like a Jimmy Webb song over which Linda spreads her airy vocals like a cool breeze on a hot day. The more quick-dictated chorus section is more reminiscent of what would become one of SUZANNE VEGA's signature styles. (8.875/10)

5. "Sandy Toes" (2:52) with full electrified combo of bongs, electric guitars, electric bass, and her voice doubled up. (8.75/10)

6. "Parallelograms" (4:32) two acoustic guitars gently picked while Linda's multi-tracks vocals weave in and around each other. Weird dramatic/cinematic Alice in Wonderland-like psychedelic freak out starting at the two-minute mark. The song returns to the opening motif at 3::40 as if nothing had happened. Great song and vocals despite weird interlude in the middle. (9/10)

7. "Hey, Who Really Cares?" (2:35) ethereal voice sung over gently picked acoustic guitars, perfect bass guitar play, and some Wurlitzer organ. A top three. (4.75/5)

8. "Moons and Cattails" (4:02) more fare on the Beatnik blues side of the folk spectrum. Interesting vocal affectations. (8.6667/10)

9. "Morning Colors" (4:34) opens sounding so much like JONI MITCHELL at her most personal and introspective. The great British folk chanteuses also come to mind--especially when Linda hits and holds those crystalline high notes. Even the lyrical content and delivery feel so Joni-like--though occasionally I find myself (in the lower notes) right inside the SUZANNE VEGA camp. Flute and saxophone interplay is a nice touch. (Is it more than a coincidence that song's final word--carried on a long held high note--is "blue"?) (8.875/10)

10. "Porcelain Baked-Over Cast-Iron Wedding" (3:59) muted drums, electric bass and picked guitar with acoustic guitars (including a 12-string) over which Linda sings a more aggressive/acerbic Joni-Annette Peacock vocal performance. (8.75/10)

11. "Delicious (4:07) the delicate side of Linda: frail, angelic high pitched voice with one sole acoustic guitar in support. Linda's gift to posterity that is comparable to PETER, PAUL AND MARY's "Wedding Song." Absolute musical perfection. My final top three song. (10/10)

Total Time 39:50

B+/4.5 stars; a sonic and performance masterpiece of folk music that isn't quite proggy enough to qualify for the "masterpiece" status within the Prog umbrella. HIGHLY recommended for ALL music lovers.

A once-lost Psychedelic Masterpiece and Essential Listen of Beauty, Grace and Love

In an absolutely stunning show of unabashed and everlasting experimentation, but also just pure, human beauty, Linda Perhacs opens her once-short-lived music career with 1970's Parallelograms. Produced, mastered and pressed in the most terrible way conceivable and then also promoted most disrespectfully limited, this avant-garde and Psychedelic Folk masterpiece was nearly lost to time... It was following this initial release that she herself threw out her own copy of her own debut album and returned to her career as a dental hygienist...

Thanks to the understandable and increasing love for her work, crap-pressings aside, by those, most notably, from the region and folk scene of LA where she did and still does reside (specifically Topanga Canyon), Parallelograms subsequently became a cult classic. She was purportedly approached after a not-so-pleasing reissue (according to Pitchfork, a headphones-unlistenable CD version of the already poor-quality originals) to release a remastered version of this, her debut. The quality was enhanced all the further by recordings she had in her home. What a gift!

Since then, thanks to further encouragement from admittedly much younger Canyon peers and eventually would-be modern Prog maestro Fernando Perdomo with whom she then worked (you can see from my not-too-old reviews how I view his early discography...), she released her second album, The Soul of All Natural Things, in 2014. It was issued via Sufjan Stevens' label Asthmatic Kitty. In 2017, she followed that album with an album whose cover I actually recognized: I'm a Harmony.

Aside from the partially terribly produced but frankly really cool "Porcelain Baked-Over Cast-Iron Wedding", the current 2014 reissue, available I assume everywhere, is really an image of beauty and grace. I am truly blessed by it today. From the cascading and stunning "Chimacum Rain" that starts off the affair, other such classics in Folksy singer-songwriter include "Dolphin", the Joni Mitchell-esque "Sandy Toes", "Hey, Who Really Cares", the light-orchestral "Morning Colors" and the finale, "Delicious". Psychedelic, even avant-garde in nature, are the following: "Call of the River, the at once quieted psychedelia then haunting experimentalism of "Parallelograms", and the would-be-Björk-esque Raga "Moons and Cattails" (honestly reminds me of "Donkey Jaw" off the first America album). "Paper Mountain Man", as is the aforementioned "Porcelain...", is an excellent, rockin' Folk Rock number. Very riveting and almost funky.

Don't miss this one. It's beautiful and expansive.

Parallelograms (1970) is an album that just knocked my socks off from the first listen. This is really everything I look for in a folk album, though the music leans psychedelic, there is without a doubt plenty of progressive elements in the mix. The music is often minimalist, but is generally heavily layered with these very flowing vocal harmonies and subtleties. Most of the songs are led by acoustic guitars but there's actually a lot of different instruments and even electronics used all over the album. The opener Chimicum Rain has such an earthy and organic atmosphere that's really echoed in most of if not all of the following tracks. A couple minutes into the song it starts showing the first signs of some of the darker, more experimental psychedelia this album ends up dipping its feet in on later tracks. Call of the River and Sandy Toes showcase that as great as the vocal harmonies are, the melodies are equally as great throughout and often carry a lot of emotion. That brings me to the next track and one that really caught me off guard and that's the title track. This is a truly unsettling and perhaps even scary piece of music if you're not expecting it. The song opens with these very layered, intricate twisting vocal harmonies somewhat reminding me of Gentle Giant. However, unexpectedly the middle of the song just melts into absolute psychedelic avant garde chaos with these offbeat, somewhat menacing, dissonant vocals on top of a bunch of electronic sound effects and subtle instrumentals. What's really noteworthy during this section are the strange progressive production and panning techniques used almost similar to something like Pink Floyds "On The Run" from a few years down the line. There's a great term I could use to describe this song but to keep it PG, it's an absolute mindfork. Even when the main theme from the first couple minutes of the song fades in it doesn't matter cause you've already been transported to another universe. Anyways, the quality of music just doesn't drop on this album and every song is distinct and interesting. The closing track "Delcious" is another favorite of mine, the singing, hook and general flow of the song is just beautiful and it just leaves you feeling completely satisfied.

A hidden gem and one of my all time favorites, don't sleep on it! 5 Stars.

LINDA PERHACS joined a small but distinguished club of artists who released a mere album decades ago, in her case the year 1970 and then like an ephemeral flower child who withered away for a full 44 years rose from the ashes to sing like a songbird once again. While her first album "Parallelograms" fit in quite well with the lysergic psychedelic vibes of the late 60s ceding to the swinging 70s, PERHACS herself was far from the hippie persona that many assume she was from the dreamy double image overlay of her debut album cover. She was in fact a serious dental hygienist who just happened to write beautiful folk music in her spare time and during her time in Beverly Hills, she found herself with the famous cinematic composer Leonard Rosenman in her dental chair and after more than a little small talk and a sampling of her demos, Rosenman was so smitten with LINDA's angelic estrogen folk that he offered to produce an entire album's worth of material.

The album was a complete bomb despite its abundance of perfectly infused psychedelic folk sounds that were the epitome of the zeitgeist of the era. What seemed like a dream come true suddenly became a harsh reality. The dental job paid the bills, the music career did not. LINDA would scrap her dreams of usurping Joan Baez as the queen of folk and carried on as if it was just that, a dream that evaporates into the ethers. However, the album that very few listened to at the time quietly caught on as the ensuing decades slipped by and as the 90s hit, "Parallelograms" was a phenomenal cult legend made all the more famous by Opeth's Mikael Åkerfeldt ceaselessly promoting it as well as tracks appearing in the strangest places such as in Daft Punk's film "Electroma." With all the hysteria continuing to mushroom into epic status, PERHACS decided that perhaps it was time to revisit this music thing and at long last in 2014 released her sophomore album "The Soul of All Natural Things," a return to the dreamy folk laden past fortified with modern day embellishments such as new age electronics and dream pop sensibilities.

While the debut was a solo job through and through, the return to grace incorporated the talents of newer blood on the scene which is exactly what happened when LINDA's third album I'M A HARMONY exploited with not only a couple extras on board but a veritable who's who of folk and ambient music of the 21st century which included Nels Cline of Wilco, Devendra Banhart, The Autumn Defense, Durga McBroom, Michelle Vidal, Pat Sansone, Mark Pritchard as well as a return from Julia Holter who dominates the cameo spot with four tracks. For the most part I'M A HARMONY picks up where "The Soul of All Natural Things" left off with less emphasis on LINDA's 1970 psychedelic folk aspects and focuses more on catchy dream pop that for the most part utilizes gentle acoustic guitar arpeggios to create light soothing melodies that rely less on complex musical structures and present a more radio friendly ambient pop vibe. PERHACS was very impressed with the electronic aspects of the previous album and implements them here even more liberally.

One of the things that made "The Soul of All Natural Things" such a beautiful comeback was that all the tracks were super catchy but didn't sound too overtly poppy. The tracks connected the dots between the past and the present with LINDA's vocal abilities sounding more or less in tact despite having reached the age of 70. In many ways, the music of I'M A HARMONY reminds me of The Cocteau Twins much like presented on albums like "Victorialand," except on I'M A HARMONY tends to implement intermittent episodic usage of downtempo beats that alternate with the dream pop while everything is hazily embellished with a temperamental atmospheric cloud cover to perhaps lighten the earnest subject matter of the metaphysical meeting the physical and the bruised emotions that result of the trials and tribulations of life on the physical plane. There are also touches of bossa nova and Spanish flamenco that creep in at times and to be honest sound a little out of place here.

From the production point of view, I'M IN HARMONY is beautifully constructed with all the dreamy elements finding perfect resolution in tandem with the amazing vocal harmonies and melodies however this album is a tad weaker than its predecessor due to the inconsistency of the songs. Some are saccharine and sickly sweet such as the over-earnest triteness of tracks like "Crazy Love" and "One Full Circle Around The Sun" but mostly there are too many tracks that just simply sound too much alike, something the previous albums eschewed. The formula seems to have been found and put on rotation. However there are some really stand out tracks here and those for me happen to be the ones that include Julia Holter, especially the lengthy title track which is the only psychedelic trip that evokes the distant past of 1970. The other amazing number is "Visions" which also resonates with the most psychedelic moments which begins with a wordless vocal duet, the expected arpeggiated folk pop and a much more interesting mixing job that finds interesting tribal percussion, echoey vocals and one of the most interesting melodic developments of the entire album.

I was certainly resistant to even check out "The Soul of All Natural Things" since very few artists have the chops to pull off a comeback four decades later but after the surprise of being quite impressed with that album, i was eager to explore the final journey of the so far released albums that LINDA PERHACS has graced the world with but unfortunately this one slips down a couple notches from the predecessor by lacking the consistency that keeps the listening experience pristine and heavenly. Add to that it seems that LINDA's age may have finally caught up with her since despite sounding awesome for a woman in her 70s, sounds like she has lost a bit of her dynamic range which makes me suspect that perhaps tracks on the last album were recorded long before the current era and only re-recorded musically. Of course this is all speculation but it's really the material the counts and unfortunately the great tracks on here only make it clear how weak the bad ones are. Still though, not a bad listen, just not as good as what came before and fans didn't have to wait another 44 years for new material.

3.5 but rounded down

One of the greatest gifts and tragedies of the world of psychedelic folk has be the rather unique tale of folk singer / songwriter LINDA PERHACS who has undoubtedly gone down in history as the world's most famous musical dental hygienist with a classic album under her belt that didn't quite start out that way. While her journey began in Mill Valley, CA, in the late 60s she moved to Beverly Hills where she started her new career but while she was studying the procedures of maintaining proper smiles and the dreaded science of root canals, she was also writing her own songs and developing one of the most beautiful vocal styles to have ever graced the contemporary folk scene. As chance would have it, one of her clients who happened to be film composer Leonard Rosenman heard her demos and was so blown away by LINDA's angelic vocal performances that he offered her the chance to record an entire album.

Intrigued and smitten by the possibility of becoming the next Joni Mitchell perhaps, PERHACS set her dental career aside while she recorded and released her 1970 debut album "Parallelograms." While providing the perfect soundtrack for an ethereal ride through the psychedelic haze of the 60s ceding into the 70s, the album was completely ignored and lurked as a footnote in history for decades as the few copies pressed slowly disappeared from the world one by one, however the few staunch fans who fell in love with PERHACS' unique and stunningly precise vocal style managed to keep her career on life support and slowly but surely throughout the decades introduced her to a new audience one member at at a time.

By the 90s, "Parallelograms" had become a veritable cult legend and at long last The Wild Places which specialized in folk music re- released the album but did so from the original vinyl source leading to an inferior quality. Impressed with the album's ability to transcend the listener into a high vibratory state, the label spent the next couple of years trying to contact LINDA and finally hit pay dirt in 2000 when they not only located her but were able to find the master tapes which they quickly did a thorough remastering job and once again re-released the album in 2003. The album that went completely unnoticed continued to achieve the status of one of the greatest albums to have gone nowhere all through the early 2000s and by the end of the noughts, it was becoming obvious that despite all the odds, the demand for LINDA's music was only growing solely off a single album released quietly all the way back in 1970.

The momentum only continued when the demo "If You Were My Man" (only featured as a bonus track on remastered versions) was featured in Daft Punk's film "Electroma" and an unlikely ally in the form of Opeth's Mikael Åkerfeldt who was single-handedly circulating copies of the album as he too was so impressed by its greatness. After retiring from her career as a dental hygienist, LINDA PERHACS was given the long lost chance of reviving her music career and finally in the year 2014 her second album THE SOUL OF ALL NATURAL THINGS finally hit the scene a full 44 years after her debut, a feat that exceeds even that of another angelic folk singer Vashti Bunyan who also released a sole album in 1970 but found a second calling with her sophomore release in 2005. While the likelihood that a vocalist still has the goods to follow up an album so many years later is practically nil, the likelihood of it sounding even remotely close to the spirit of its predecessor is seemingly equally impossible.

But not in the case of LINDA PERHACS who despite achieving the tender age of 70 years simply dissolves the decades in between with an amazingly brilliant performance that defied all odds of even existing. Personally i call this estrogen folk as it displays ethereal haunting female vocals that soar to the heavens and rarely come back down to our low vibratory center on the Earth. While such glory is common for young vixens still of reproductive age, often elders of the female gender lose their angelic vox box as the estrogen cedes and the testosterone intercedes but the amazing thing about LINDA PERHACS is that she effortlessly glides up and down the soprano scales without the slightest sense of strain. Utterly amazing considering she has spent her decades primarily in the dentist's office and not in the recording studio. While "Parallelograms" was a tender series of psychedelic folk songs that soared to the heavens, THE SOUL OF ALL NATURAL THINGS displays a much more diverse roster of tracks that infuse the folksy flavors of the past with a more contemporary mix of dream pop which includes ethnic flavors and percussive beats.

While the dreamy free-flowing folk songs and multi-tracked harmonies easily connect the dots between LINDA's past and the present, the sole voice in the wilderness is augmented by some guests in the form of Julia Holter's vocal appearance on "Prisms of Glass" and the backing vocals of Ramona Gonzalez which makes this album sound more like a group effort rather than a solo one. The album is impeccably produced, creatively composed and hosts a wide range of interlocking melodic hooks that give this album more pop sensibilities and also a wide range of new age sounds but for anyone who loved the dreamy mix of folk and sound effects of the debut, will not be disappointed by this slightly more accessible album that at times sounds a bit like the modern releases of Dead Can Dance. In short, THE SOUL OF ALL NATURAL THINGS is a stunningly beautiful album that flows nicely from beginning to end and although i wouldn't quite say it surpasses the majesty of "Parallelograms," it certainly is a strong followup especially given the 44 years that elapsed in between. Luckily LINDA stuck to it this time around and released her third album "I'm A Harmony" in 2017 proving that dental hygienists certainly do get second chances to reach for the stars.

Linda Perhacs - Parralellograms (1970)

In the age of internet obscurities come to be rediscovered, like this sole record of Linda Perhacs from the beginning of the seventies. Here listed in the progressive folk section, I would discribe it as mellow songwriters folk with mild psychedelic influences on some tracks. More then an early seventies record I would call it a light sixties recording.

A clear authentic female voice, an acoustic guitar, songs in which the silence is a main instrument and some arrangements with rhythm and wind sections. It doesn't matter how loud you play this, it's still intimate and soothing. All songs sound interesting and original, but the performance is the thing that stands out. Somehow Linda Perhacs is really out there, full of soul and love.

The recording showcases a minimal approach and everything has a function. Even some vocal dubs are used with a distinctive effect in mind, not just to fill up the space. My vinyl-reptrint on Kapp sound allright, but I can imagine a better remaster being done.

Conclusion. If you like that late sixties soulful intimate folk sound this is a real flawless gem. For progressive folk look elsewhere, I'm actually a bit surprised this record can be found on progarchives. Well then, four stars. This will possibly become a personal favorite.

Now here's an example of a real slow burner. LINDA PERHACS was a psychedelic folk singer with an angelic voice who composed eleven tracks for her debut album PARALLELOGRAMS which came out in 1970. Originally released on Kapp Records the album went completely ignored and garnered absolutely no attention upon release mostly due to the fact like many record companies of the day Kapp did zilch in terms of promotion. So discouraged was LINDA by the whole thing that she called it quits and set her goal to the more realistic career as a dental technician. As practical as she was nothing could have forewarned her that she laid down a cult classic that would garner attention slowly over the next 30 years and then a sudden surge in popularity in the 2000s due to a movement called New Weird America which is a group obsessed with all things psychedelic that were sitting in the vaults of history awaiting rediscovery. After this sudden surge in popularity after so much time LINDA finally released a 2nd album in 2014.

The music is often listed as progressive folk and it is to a certain extent in the arrangements and additional layers of sounds and vocalizations but it is only moderately so. It is more of an organic singer / songwriter kind of folk music that reminds me a bit of Joni Mitchell in the music department but her beautiful singing ability really makes me think of Ann Wilson of Heart especially on the acoustic folk-laden album "Dog & Butterfly." This is a pleasant little album where her vocal abilities are the star but the music itself perfectly backs it up. The psychedelic label attached may seem misguided when you give this a spin as it sounds like simple folk at first but as the album progresses there are some interesting developments especially on the title track. This definitely has a hippie vibe to the whole thing. It evokes the feel of a time of idealism and innocence of rural pastoral lands where people share their love of the Earth and nature and the desire to celebrate the world in the drop-out cultures that often resulted in communes of the day.

Albums like PARALLELOGRAMS only show how the big bang of creativity that was the late 60s and early 70s left an overwhelmed music loving population unable to digest every single thing that was released especially if it was scrapped immediately after its first pressing. Continuous thanks to the record labels who are reviving such long lost treasures like this one which show an angel sent from heaven to deliver her gift to the world only to have her wings clipped and forced to find an alternative way to get by in the world. In the case of LINDA PERHACS I do believe that it was a great loss for the world indeed. Luckily after many years of even trying to locate LINDA she was finally located and she shared the master tapes of this album and it has been completely restored and remastered.