ROBBIE BASHO

Robbie Basho's music rises from deep spiritual pools. Dive in and find yourself transfigured. Listen and become a cave dwelling Hindu ascetic; an embroidered, Sufi sage; a weather changing medicine-man. Or, if you're lucky, you might become Basho himself:

12-string guitar wizard, transcendent singer, majestic composer, virtuosic whistler, and ecstatic channel. Robbie Basho, little known shaman of America the beautiful. Between 1965 and 1984 Basho composed 16 records of highly innovative folk/world music. In the beginning of his career Basho worked alongside John Fahey to create a new guitar tradition, the "American Primitive". Gnome Life has the great honor of re-issuing one of Basho's finest records which has been out of print since 1978. Recorded in the height of Robbie Basho's creative career, Visions of the Country was originally released in 1978, and has been out of print for nearly 35 years.

The album is comprised of technically superb instrumentation (6 & 12 string guitars and piano); majestic compositions; transcendent singing and whistling; and astonishing lyrical, emotional, and spiritual depths that defy description or comparison. It is with a feeling of tremendous honor and joy that we offer this re-issue, which we hope will please existing Basho devotees, and create new acolytes, in equal measure. The feeling is akin to re-introducing an endangered species back into its native habitat, for this album is a precious, mighty, and wild thing. Visions of the Country should not stay couped up in expensive e-bay auctions and low quality vinyl-to-Mp3 rips, it needs to soar gloriously in high fidelity through our culture once more! In his own words: "My philosophy is quite simple: soul first, technique later, or 'Better to drink wine from the hands than water from a pretty cup'; of course the ultimate is wine from a pretty cup.” Visions of the Country is most simply a depiction of the expansive American West, and an ecstatic journey into Basho's expansive imagination and mystical approach to creativity, a shining example of what artistic heights can be attained when soul and technique meet on a deep level. In our opinion, it is one of the finest albums ever recorded, wine from a very beautiful and magical cup indeed.