Rodriguez
Cold Fact

THE REVIEW

Spontaneous Statement:

I confess wholeheartedly, trusting in the mercy of the Court just convened, that until a few weeks ago, of the good Sixto, besides Diaz (also known simply as) Rodriguez and His quietly unpredictable debut album now obscured by the inexorably enveloping dust of space-time dating back nearly four decades ago, I knew absolutely nothing at all.

I ask myself, and I ask You, courteous Members of the Jury, how this could have been possible and how it might have occurred that my lazily ectoplasmic single-neuron (which for brevity's sake I will henceforth call Ecto) has not yet felt the urgency for knowledge: among the seven/eight million bands, related biographical notes, discographies, line-ups, and various trivia that have more or less freely crossed the personal (empty) skull so far, of the splendid vocal-musical interpretation provided by the flashy mixed-breed in question, there is absolutely no trace.

For Heaven's sake! And yet Ecto, present in a variable number in each of Us, is increasingly, despite ourselves and without explicit request, made aware on a daily basis of everything and everyone: overwhelmed from every longitude, like innocent yet slender tree twigs exposed to the most tumultuous storms, by the worst heresies put to music (a paradigmatically contemporary name at random: the very human case of Marco Carta and the talented "Friends" gathered on the side); at the same time the system deliberately forgets, at least until it can derive some dirty profit from it, to educate us, bringing back the admirable achievements, of the undeniable intrinsic quality of timeless characters and works like this magnetic "Cold Fact." 

I am indignant but also (in)conscious of my underlying culpability: I should have explored my surrounding environment with an even more Cistercian attitude; I hope therefore, Dear Lords gathered here to discuss the appropriate punishment to inflict upon me, to possibly provide a belated and extremely ineffective medicinal remedy through this ramshackle de-page.

Evidence:

"Cold Fact," muffled, sparkling, multifaceted debut of the good Rodriguez, was realized in the graceful year of 1970 and despite its inevitably archaic sound-structure it sounds unexpectedly and magnificently fresh even today, pleasantly varied, rich in imaginative and unexpected solutions and nuances as few records (even very recent ones) can boast of extending in the same manner; initially, as we are now accustomed to sparkling recordings [narcotized by the "how" and not the "what"] capable of enhancing any negligible sound-quirks, in listening to the compressed, almost canned, apparently monophonic structure of the emitted sound, one must make an additional (but abundantly repaid) effort before fully savoring the changing and passionate atmospheres contained within. Twelve brief/very brief exquisite songs (rarely exceeding three minutes), which someone has clumsily dared to define as a kind of Beck before his time: if I were good Rodriguez, I'd be somewhat annoyed! 

Let me testify that the precious and diverse psychedelic-folk-pop-rock-soul-blues pastiche represented here shames, shaves, and completely waxes the production of the otherwise interesting, at least in its early stages, Mr. Hansen; the central bridge of the dreamlike "Sugar Man" hurls us into an unstable black hole devoid of sound-gravity with truly indefinable space-time boundaries; the apparently simple but terribly attractive and effective acoustic structures of "Hate Street Disguise" and/or "Crucify Your Mind" or the incendiary para-Hendrixian guitar work of the 'bad' "Only Good For Conversation" leave one pitilessly and irreversibly enamored; to all this is added that bittersweet, melancholically happy, sensation of uniqueness that exponentially increases its already inherently high intrinsic value.

Prosecution Speech:

Ladies and Gentlemen! There are two issues: either this evanescent and negligible relic delivered the final blow that generated the conclusive game over (insert coin, please) to the silly Ecto, whereby he must be declared as mentally unfit yet innocent or it is urgent that this (exhausted to death) Court assigns the maximum penalty for such grave occurrences: by law, the penalty to be applied will be the repeated listening to the "vocal evolutions" of the folk-apocalyptic Marco Carta ad infinitum.

Desperate Appeal:

Ecto: have mercy on me (or).