A Psychedelic Folk Album that Withstands the Test of Time
There are few morsels of music that transcend the era they were written in, and remain a class above as timeless pinnacles of artistry and unbridled talent. Suspended in its own league and leaving listeners enchanted, Parallelograms by Linda Perhacs, released in 1970, is one of them.
Awash with steady broken acoustic guitar chords, the soaring soprano voice of Perhacs and evocative, charming lyrics, Parallelograms draws any discerning listener in with a warm embrace, stroking their hair gently with well-moisturized hands. Certainly, for me, this album came as a pleasant surprise when I found it on a random Spotify Radio a few weeks ago. Since then, it has become a staple in my day-to-day listening and has lulled me to sleep numerous times.
What is indeed interesting about this album is that upon its initial release on Kapp Records in 1970, it failed to garner acclaim, and Perhacs’ returned to her career of being a dental hygienist. This album was only picked up and popularized by Folk label the Wild Places nearly 30 years later in 1998, leading to a CD and double LP reissue in 2003. Since then, it has seen numerous vinyl reissues, all of which have been snapped up (likely) by folknatics and indieheads alike. Perhacs released 2 more albums only very recently — namely The Soul of all Natural Things in 2014 and I’m a Harmony in 2017.
Lyrics aside, it seems like Parallelograms manages to capture the same overarching emotions that we see in the prominent folk-ish ladies of our generation — Phoebe Bridgers, Big Thief, Faye Webster, Bedouine; this list is far from exhaustive — but in a manner that’s slightly more unplugged and at times also rather unhinged. Most times, Perhacs chooses to grace us with beautiful drifting melodies and lush chordal progressions, although all the while throwing in short sections of wild atonality and playful chromaticism.
Chimacum Rain opens the record with a thick and placid atmosphere that engenders the idea of a stuffy forest that Perhacs places the listener into, and that viscosity of the air is palpable as she layers her voice in cluster chords, singing about a sort of forbidden love, languorously exclaiming: “He belongs here, can’t have him / He belongs here, can’t know him”. With a dreary dreaminess, the harmony built on major 7ths does its job well to impart a feeling that is both calm, and yet harbors a tinge of withheld despondency. The song slowly devolves into a very dark sounding drone with the above referenced lyrics, although recovering the calm opening sound after a short lapse, as if nothing had ever happened. Immediately after, we segue into a Jail House Blues-esque piece in Paper Mountain Men, layered with erratic harmonica riffs and a true blues scale employed in the guitar throughout. As the harmonica fades out, we find a new song begins, oscillating between a minor and major sonority that immediately enraptures the ears. Dolphin, with a simple finger-picking pattern in the guitar that cycles through what I can only call the most beautiful collection of chords I’ve heard, echoes Perhacs’ desires to be free in the ocean, much like the subject of this track, despite being unable to in her worldly form. There is a deep underlying melancholy in this song that is encoded into its longing lyrics and harmony riddled with suspensions and modal interchange.
Call of the River is yet another showcase of harmonic virtuosity, where the modality swings between major and minor sounds in a spiraling picked guitar voice, leading to an inexplicable thirst for adventure, as Perhacs beckons: “Come feel along your sides / The long cool touch of current / Like a far remembered life”.
The titular track acts as a centerpiece to the entire album, layering numerous guitar voices and Perhacs voices, all the while crooning the names of various shapes. It carries the typical beauty that we’ve been listening to thus far — albeit with a light eccentricity, until a sudden drum break snaps the track into a hypnotic and entirely chaotic middle section that would put Kid A to shame, with sibilant hisses, trailing ostinatos and bursts of synth that sound nearly aleatoric. But I trust that Perhacs had meant for the song to sound exactly like that.
After the track calms down, as in a Sonata form, the next song Hey, Who Really Cares brings back the beautiful arpeggiated major 7th chords and really could be mistaken for something written 50 years later and performed at a NPR Tiny Desk Concert with its throbbing bassline. The only indication that this song is from a time long past is a very Moog-y synth sound that reminds one of Mort Garson’s Plantasia. Moons and Cattails brings with it a very deep ‘tribal’ sound, with its lively percussion, Perhacs’ very pointed voice with hisses, purposely turning consonants percussive, and trills and bends willy-nilly in the guitar. Morning Colors appropriately feels like a sun hitting one’s face as they slowly stir awake, with a guitar sound quality that recalls romantic Spanish greats like Tárrega.
Porcelain Baked-Over Cast-Iron Wedding, with its cleverly written title, shows Perhacs trying her hand at psychedelic rock, and how she could have likely shaken the world if she’d written an entire album in this style at the time.
The album closes off with a nocturne of sorts, in Delicious. Yet another track detailing a yearning for freedom and love, two concepts which remain timeless in essence. “Oh, how delicious / Oh, how I want this / Oh, how I want you”; at this point, having been brought through a harmonic journey, riddled with chord extensions, modal interchange and suspended chords aplenty, we are finally glad to end the album on a simple strum of a major 7th chord, harmonically mirroring the very beginning of this listening experience.
There are many folk albums that inevitably end up washed away in the sea of psychedelic music written in the 1960s to 1970s, but Parallelograms is a musical delicacy, worth lapping up every last drop of its sonic goodness. Like a diamond in the rough, Parallelograms gleams in a way that makes it seem alive, and makes you want to feel unrestrictedly — and unapologetically — alive.
