Simon Finn – Pass the Distance LP

Description

Few albums define a genre as succinctly as Simon Finns Pass The Distance does for psychedelic folk. Not even landmark recordings by Pearls Before Swine or Skip Spence can stand up to the sheer madness of Finns sole LP, originally released in 1970.After moving to London in 1967, Finn busked around town for a couple years before entering Camdens Chalk Farm Studios, best known for producing a string of reggae hits. Pass The Distance, however, would become more than a solo-acoustic project.Backed by free-improvisation innovators David Toop and Paul Burwell, Finns dark, personal songs unravel lysergically over 40 minutes. Toops sinewy electric guitar and Burwells broad percussive palette lift up Finns ardent strumming and snarling vocals, making this one wild ride in catharsis, introspection and raw merriment.As Finn tells journalist Dave Segal in an interview for this vinyl reissue, The songs were about alienation and loneliness. Jerusalem came to me in one shot. I wrote it on mescaline and was playing it over and over and one of my flatmates wrote it down.Pass The Distance remains a cult record in the best sense of the term, possessing a hypnotic beauty all its own.