If you want to be real about it, if you want to be honest, then you'll acknowledge that there are some serious heavy hitters mingling amongst the schlock in the Bay Area's new age and early Windham Hill-adjacent realms. You had your forgettable pseudo new-age visionaries to be sure, but the hitters were....well, just spend some time with In Search Of The Turtle's Navel and get back to me if you still have any questions. This tape isn't on Windham Hill but there are time and place associations (these things matter) so I snagged Watching The Night Fall when I saw it tempting me with a 99¢ price tag. Life changing? Nope. Worth the price of admission? Absolutely. On the face it's "just" piano and....Marin County (it's not from Marin County - shit is complicated so please just stick with me here). This is the soundtrack of 1970s Bay Area idealism removed from reality, relocated to the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge (or down CA-85) with the Deadheads and the suit & tie hippies to a world comparable to that of crust punks with DISCLOSE backpatches growing vegetables and creating community in the suburbs just beyond the reach of the inner cities they still champion/ed. It's not a slag - gardens are fucking chill and I look forward to having another one in another life/time. It's just that....GARY LAMB is the sound of that, even though he is neither (I said it's complicated). Lamb is a Bay Area (Santa Cruz ish) native who was probably born into the life that others invaded....and this, my friends, opens an entirely different and equally different line of conversation.
You see....sometimes it's just better to listen to the sounds.
You see....sometimes it's just better to listen to the sounds.
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