Kim Fowley
Outrageous

LA RECENSIONE

This morning I noticed, with extreme surprise, that on Debaser, and in general on many Italian music sites, there's little talk about the excellent yet underappreciated Kim Fowley, an American artist with an irregular output, few or no commercial successes, and an energy unknown to most. I believe it would be useful for the site's readers if I briefly pause to talk about one of the best albums by Fowley, Outrageous ('68), which, from the title onward, seems programmatic and indicative of the musician's intent.

An album in some respects confused and confusing, full of ideas that unsuspecting artists would later develop in the following decades (consider Sonic Youth), "Outrageous" can be described as a fresco of irregular rock, alternative avant la lettre, in some ways akin to the inventions of a Zappa, a Captain Beefheart, or a Todd Rundgren, but much, much, much more acidic, deviant, and provocative.

The foundation of all the songs is the vocals, sometimes declamatory, sometimes paroxysmal, often vulgar, with Fowley guiding us—new Orpheus—into a world where the music expresses unease, madness, vituperation, a thousand miles away from bel canto, melody, rational order, and everything that could appeal to the market, or rather, everything the market could expect from an artist.

Added to this is a frequently frenetic drum sound remarkably modern, which, far from keeping rhythm in a mere accompanying role, often becomes a driving element of the track, delivering an almost tribal and orgiastic atmosphere (Steve Shelley must have taken note), a blazing guitar, fast, acidic, and aggressive, thus avant-garde for those '60s when everyone was limiting themselves to celebrating "While My Guitar" on the Beatles' White Album, almost a precursor of the times, keyboards that color the individual tracks more with effects than harmonies and melodies.

Regarding the individual and diverse tracks on the album under discussion, I highlight the intense "Animal Man" and "Barefoot Country Boy", deviant and provocative rock'n'roll, the bluesy "Wildfire" and "Up" (but it's introspective and almost blasphemous blues, compared to the composed homages to tradition by others), the elegant and rhythmic "Hide and Seek" (with excellent intertwining guitars over bass and drum textures), Sonic Youth's cover of "Bubble Gum" in Evol, the unsettling "Inner Space Discovery", "Caught in the Middle", "Down", worthy of a Beefheart on a hallucinatory trip (ok... much more hallucinogenic than usual).

In summary, a work I recommend and an artist who should be rediscovered for how he represented "alternative" music when this term perhaps truly had meaning, and for how he's influenced, without equivalent celebration, much of the American punk-wave scene.

A round of applause for the talented Kim.