Erik
Look Where I Am (1968)

I wake up in the middle of the night with an intense desire to listen to an album that can soften me and reconcile me with the arms of Morpheus… I get up with difficulty and search through the pile stacked next to the stereo… there it is…!!! Erik, the elf of New York. My ears are immediately filled with its magic (I put on the headphones because the neighbors…) and the notes of the first track start playing… like… the best Burt Bacharach engaged in a dreamlike journey, "Look Where I Am (Well It’s Right Over Here)" is one of the most charming and alluring pieces I have ever heard. A “cinematic” orchestration leads the duet between the protagonist's voice and a muted trumpet, managing to maintain a continuous tension in the track, without ever slipping into the dramatic. “Painted On The Wall” is a folky singer-songwriter gem, in the vein of Tim Buckley, pre-Nick Drake (without invoking the master Dylan or the prophet Guthrie), although here arrangements and instruments unconventional to pop-rock, like the recorder, are always at the forefront.

A bit more melancholic (and the title should already be a clue) is “Dead Afternoon Song”, which continues along the path laid by the previous one… while “Be Off Man” is a neurotic Middle Eastern folk balancing between the Byrds and Kaleidoscope (USA). “Why Come Another Day” is a subdued psychedelic lament for voice, guitars, and various oddities. “You Said/But I’ve Got My Own Way” originally closes side A, blending the claustrophobia of the Velvet Underground with the neurosis of Crazy Horse with a frantic tension that takes hold of Erik's gentle and calm voice… which immediately after returns to kindly converse with the mute in “Lights Across The Field Bright Light Across The Field Too”. The subdued easy-listening of “Sweet Eyes Of” lulls us towards the more robust “Georgeann”, while the following “Untitled Number 2” is a whisper of vague Hispanic mood, with a fantastic melodic guitar emerging from the folds of the piece, never overstepping, and preludes to the final “Triyumphant Breaking Bottle”, which sounds like a road track that accompanies you on a walk through a deserted street in the outskirts of New York.

Erik, at this point, turns the corner at the end of the block and disappears into the faint morning sun… leaving me astonished, with eyes and ears still wide open… and my sleep has gone for a toss… but the daylight now seems much more beautiful.