LPCDreissues: Looking forward to the past

In the '60s artists came to ESP-Disk' from all over America. They were strongly influenced by the struggle for civil rights, the death of Malcolm X, JFK, Martin Luther King and the war in Vietnam. You may, if you wish, consider ESP-Disk' to have been attempting to document in a journalistic fashion, with integrity, the music of the time". One Nation Underground is one of the most elegant and subtly political folk albums of the late '60s era coming at time when the protest songs of Dylan & Phil Ochs still filled the air - the songs of Tom Rapp had a purity of intent, poetic edge with arrangements and song-craft unmatched. The Pearls were outsiders - a music that is psychedelic, intellectual, resistant, and tragically beautiful- which in the context of ESP-Disk's rigor, anger and ecstasy of the free music scene make Pearls Before Swine's two ESP-Disk' albums outstanding releases. Also available on LP (GET 1008).