Moore, R. Stevie Moore - Personal Appeal
SKU
05-Care 109
"This is a great list of track choices! Finally, not the hits again, but hidden gem obscurities. I dig it lots..." -R. Stevie Moore
"There can't be many who possess a back catalog containing more hidden gems and scarcely-touched-upon curios than R. Stevie Moore. Dubbed "The Grandfather of DIY" by some, it's the only tag that's ever stuck for this prolific, chameleonic artist, whose cult status has grown over nearly half a century of music-making, and whose back catalog -- which numbers in the hundreds of releases -- has influenced everyone from Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore to lo-fi pop king Ariel Pink. This wave of musical admiration from peers, both contemporary and new, has helped push this once most outsider of musicians towards the wider consciousness; the past two years have seen him appear on the cover of Wire, record a session for the BBC, tour Europe and tread festival stages -- the consequences of a most endearingly unfashionable artist suddenly finding himself in fashion. Personal Appeal both showcases why such acclaim is several decades overdue, but in its body of material it actually goes back to way before the magazine covers and rise to cult iconicity that Moore can now justly enjoy. These tracks have been taken from a period in between 1973 to 2001, an era during which he forged a deep connection -- for better or worse -- with New Jersey, after moving there from his native Nashville in 1978. The sheer volume of releases that have come out through Moore's career perhaps explain the wider overload of thought that occupies this most frenetic of minds. As he was releasing music on a number of labels, including his uncle's HP Music, he also put out swathes more on his own mail-order Cassette Club, which operated out of his NJ home. The cuts on Personal Appeal all derive from this vast, largely un-catalogued well of material that he was creating and self-producing alongside his more official output. The selection tells a story, not through comprehension, but through mood and representation. It veers through surf-rock, freak-folk, touches on bluegrass and country -- a nod to his formative years -- and sprawls outwards to include orchestral flourishes and broader rock sounds; Moore's writing has always mixed humor with melancholic sincerity, as indicated on track-titles like "Why Can't I Write a Hit?" and "Pretend for a Second That You Are Very Intelligent." Personal Appeal is a series of snapshots and insights into the mind of a man for whom the only editor he had or could answer to during his NJ years was himself. It's a narrative applied to a mass of frequently brilliant full recordings, half-ideas and experiments, and a reflection on the ups and downs of an artist who continued to strive for his music even when hope of any wider recognition seemed lost."
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