All Most Heaven [Vinyl]

SEPTEMBER 2016 REPRESS!Chicago’s music scene in the mid-90s suffered through unwanted IT-status, owing in part to hype garnered by Liz Phair, Urge Overkill, Smashing Pumpkins and others of their vile ilk. Meanwhile, the underground was a field thick with soon-to-be-typecast post-rockers, plus the vets of T&G’s 80s era, jazzers and other types of improv/freakout weirdos. Making records in town thus became a fun pursuit for Drag City, as any number of musicians might be perceived as being on-call to do a session for Smog, Edith Frost, Jim O’Rourke and/or whoever else! “All Most Heaven” attempted Motown-esque assembly-line record making: Will Oldham’s fetchingly odd demos were elaborately arranged by O’Rourke, who co-produced the basic tracks with Rian Murphy and a local wrecking crew, with a view to draw even more stars in to finish the project. When done, it was a most Left Banke-ish of Drag City records, without even a harpsichord in sight! The working title, “Murphy Does Oldham,” implied that this Murphy fellow would produce, which he did exclusively, with no vocal or instrumental parts contributed by the would-be Spector Jr. This didn’t keep him from hamming it up on the cover though!