Snow Beneath the Belly of a White Swan: The Lost Live Recordings

Basho was an unconventional and singular 12-string guitarist, an outsider whose music remains uniquely beguiling. Often dubbed the ‘Father of American Raga’, he was a deeply serious professional who looked as much to the mystical as to the physical for his inspiration, unsuccessful by commercial standards yet admired by guitarists of the calibre of Pete Townshend, Country Joe McDonald and more. His style drew from US folk, European classical, experimental and Eastern traditions, utilising overtones and drones to produce highly melodic, deceptively simple and utterly captivating works. Born in 1940 in Baltimore, Basho attended college alongside John Fahey and immersed himself in Asian culture from a young age. Between 1965 and 1974, he released a string of albums, mainly on the Takoma label. A tireless and prolific live performer who struggled to make a decent living, Basho privately released records after label support dwindled, his last arriving in 1984, two years before his tragic death during a chiropractic visit. In 2015, during the making of the documentary Voice of the Eagle: The Enigma of Robbie Basho, a vast collection of master tapes was unearthed – Basho’s own recordings of his live performances. The five discs that comprise this collection are drawn from that stash – all previously unreleased, including six never before heard compositions. All the tracks feature Basho’s solo playing. These are indeed raga-like, exploratory pieces. Take, for example, ‘Autumn Nocturne’, which gently moves from quavering darkness to misty mountain sunrise before returning to dusk with a series of delicate and hypnotic vibrations, or the beautiful, pastoral ‘Moon Milk’, rendered more poignant by Basho’s deep, fragile, vocals. There is an essential aliveness here, a sense that, like the great jazz soloists, Basho is on a quest to discover the limits of expression of his instrument. The epic ‘California Raga’ is a particular highlight – progressing from glacial sombreness through dizzying rush to shining slowness, as if Basho is attempting to sum up the entirety of human experience in one piece. His playing is structured and intricate, hypnotic in its cyclical rhythms. This is music which pulls you into its own distinctive ocean of sound, where eddies sometimes gentle, sometimes unstoppable, swirl. A melancholy beauty infuses Basho’s music, and his playing is quite remarkable, encompassing polyrhythmic fingerpicking of breathless imagination. The sound quality is generally good, save for a few tracks whose inclusion is more for reasons of completism. The box set itself is lovingly crafted – a deluxe slipcase designed by the wonderful Barbara Bersche which includes informative notes by producer Liam Barker and Robbie Dawson, with previously unseen photographs alongside vintage posters by Tom Weller. It all adds up to an unforgettable experience in which you can lose yourself for hours. To borrow a quote from Basho himself, taken from the liner notes to this exquisite collection: “I’ve heard things you wouldn’t believe up there in the great sky; and I know music – what it’s for and what it’s saying.”