THE WEIRD SISTERS - VOL.2: Linda Perhacs

Linda Perhacs is a Californian dental hygienist in her late fifties. She utters phrases like

Energies. We are surrounded by them daily [...] The doorway to them is through inner quietness and higher attunement to the higher spiritual frequencies found thru meditation. [...] These higher light energies are God centered and they fill the universe bringing healing and higher creative energies and all things that are good.

In case you think that sounds like a cliche master-your-life bible sold in one of these shops with amethysts, tarot and pendulums on display, you are right. She talks about feeling energetic rays in churches, especially close to the altar and so on and so on..

For 35 years, Linda Perhacs did not say anything in public media. I can only imagine that she spent her days in CA, in her dental hygiene studio, caring for the bleached teeth of the rich. Hula-hooping, jogging, aerobicking. Sun-tanned, dressed in mother-of-pearl tights, pink shirt.

35 years ago, Linda Perhacs released an album called "Parallelograms". In case you have heard about Led Zeppelin's Fourth Album but never about "Parallelograms", don't be afraid. It was recorded and the record company decided it was so nice it didnt need any marketing. She never played live and quickly went back to the teeth cleaning routine. On this album, she sings lines like

Parallelollelograms Parallelollelollelograms Quadroedal Tetraedal Spirallogram Semiparabolic Semimetrabolic Radiolariarunicellular Round Round Round Round

Awful, it sounds like this record might be HEALTHY. I don't want healthy music!! Well well, when does he tell us why he is writing about this all. Hm. Guess, now!

It's just because Linda Perhacs' sole album Parallelograms from 1970 is one of the most beautiful pieces of music issued in this solar system during the last 3,5 billion years. There's a lot of nice music around, even really really great music. And fantastic and tremendous music! I mean, everyone should find something to rave about.

There are, however, very very little recordings that are so beautiful that they can disturb me. No, Napalm Death or Suicide or Throbbing Gristle do not disturb me. With very very few strokes, Parallelograms creates a world and I immediately wished to live there for a while, a big while actually. No healthy music for me please.

How does it sound like? I don't know. Some say it's Psych Folk and the whole bunch of Devendra Banhart sycophants cite Parallelograms as a main influence.


It never sounds like "A girl with a guitar", which is especially puzzling because of the fact that we are listening to a girl with a guitar. A happy, very happy flower child is marching through a field...bluebottles and poppies caress her legs and you're inside a kitschy fantasy, when she starts singing. Strangely, she adds bits of psychedelia, kraut rock, experimental Beefheart blues...of course, homeopathically little, but it's definitely there...What is most fantastic - this all is sung in a very understated voice, hardly any signs of mannerism, tremolo or whatever people spoil their voices with. Think a stronger, more female version of Suzanne Vega maybe. Twelve string acoustic guitars are jangling, a lot f weird background stuff is going on...hmm...

And then you suddenly notice that you are afraid this record might end. Like a child might fear the sun won't rise again on seeing a multicoloured panoramic sundown...please, everything not this. It's disturbing because it scared me that it might have been a dream.

If you check out the last song, "Delicious", really really listen to it.....shshhh!!.... you can notice a dozen ways to express love with a voice. Love in its whole diversity, the pleasant love, actually. Mrs Perhacs sings lines like.."oh how delicious....oh how i want you", and on iPaper, it looks sub-awkward and really really silly. Her voice adds a whole bouquet of dimensions. Opens a whole spectre of love with different pronunciations of "oh". Specre, you mean Eros, Agape, Caritas? No, there must be infinitely more colours of heavenly love and it's all expressed in a short short song.

It's silence forged to music, and it's neither ambient, nor artsy, nor Pärtsy....not one of these records where you'd love to have your money back because of all the Deep pauses between the notes.....you can listen to a song here...but it's nothing repreentative at all...and please forget what you see or read on this page. Better to avoid it.

Linda, help me...

usually our perceptual senses are too dulled by the frantic, nervous pace and noise of our lives. Only by quieting our lives can we feel and see these natural and higher frequencies that fill our world and the universe.

I almost believe her. I don't want to feel and see any higher frequencies...for the time being, it's perfectly enough to listen and feel her and her music. And whatever she says about rainbows and churches and rays, energies and, say, spoonbending and spontaneous human combustion... it's all logical and good because ... it really doesnt matter...

and now, S.H., please shut up

pipe
down

SH
sh!!!!!








oh how delicious...