Though it was not new to me in 2016, the unexpected reappearance on vinyl of this little number gives me the opportunity both to experience one of the most remarkable artefacts unearthed by the post-hippy/x-tian rock obscurity-collectin’ community in the form of spinning black plastic, and just as importantly, to tell you all about it.

And, to be honest, I don’t really know how to get started on this one without alienating a fair swathe of my hypothetical readership right off the bat. I mean, if I tell you that, sometime in 1972, some mysterious dude who styled himself as “D.R. Hooker” rounded up some local musicians in New Haven, Connecticut, laid down a bunch of songs and pressed 99 copies of an LP containing the results with a grainy picture of (presumably) himself in full Jesus Christ get-up wielding an acoustic guitar on the cover, then apparently disappeared off the face of the earth…. well, you’ll already be conjuring up a very specific idea of what this record probably sounds like – but frankly you should check their expectations, because our man Mr. Hooker had a hell of a lot more up his sleeve than yr average gospelisin’ private press misfit.

Pointedly failing to fully adhere to any known genre template at any point, “The Truth” is in fact a slinky, street-walking masterpiece of casually devastating quasi-psychedelic groove-pop that has never failed to please me immeasurably.

On first exposure, the vibe here seems predominantly mellow, with brushed drums, unhinged, dub-like echo and phase effects, meandering, head-nodding bass lines and a kind of shufflin’, understated lounge feel that almost Hooker and his buddies were subject to the gravitational pull of then-contemporary landmarks like ‘What’s Going On?’ and ‘Superfly’.

As with those records though, it soon becomes clear that, whilst the playing itself is light-touch, the groove beneath it is H-E-A-V-Y – as best befits Herr Hooker’s stoned, vibrato-laden, baritone drawl, which drifts through the ether like a kind of ego-less, faintly nerd-ified Jim Morrison, shifting from strip joint pick-up routines to earnest spiritual reflections to baleful condemnations of human excess on the turn of a dime, as weird subtleties of the musical backing follow his lead. Regardless of what his ‘deal’ may have been in real life, for the forty-odd minutes of this LP, D.R.H. sounds like the coolest, most confident motherfucker ever to stalk these strange musical back waters – a legend and a true star, a smooth-talkin’ scholar, unlikely musical genius and a genuine, 24-carat enigma.

Tracks like ‘Weather Girl’ (cascading chimes, thunder samples and a groove so relaxed it should be illegal) and ‘A Stranger’s Smile’ (“nice weather we’re having lately / wait, tell me your name..” D.R. intones in strange, robot/research scientist speaking voice) are pure, libidinous pop, like the Jesus Man on the cover flashing you his pure white teeth and standing you a drink in the hotel bar. Just don’t expect it to be a strong one though, as Hooker opens Side B with the cut that is arguably his masterpiece, ‘Forge Your Own Chains’, a spectacularly sinister slice of stoned easy listening paranoia in which hip society’s impending doom at the hands of self-inflicted intoxicants is delineated in a manner whose strange mixture of gut churning unease and jazz-inflicted pastoral beauty recalls the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band’s Bob Markley at his sublime freakiest. “Maybe one more cigarette, will clear your head,” Hooker deadpans as finger-picked electric guitar fades in and out of the track’s dense wash of sound; “Today you’re living / tomorrow you’re dead” he continues, as a spectral clarinet rises from the void to celebrate “your” imminent demise. Like I say – HEAVY.

Uniquely amongst reborn hippy weirdo types, there is not a trace of wide-eyed naivety in Hooker’s persona here. Though he never breaks out into to full-blown aggression, he comes across as a canny, soft-spoken hustler just as likely to finger the wallet straight from your back pocket as to beseech you to leave it on his collection plate.

When he does deign to bust out the fuzz though, he really goes for it, dredging up time-worn, cyclopean riffs and epic, damaged soloing that would be the envy of any ‘70s Heavy contenders. More bestial weather sound effects and startling, feedback-drenched synthesizer(!?) squiggles lend an almost Eno/Ubu art-rock feel to the vast, degraded distorto-riff that anchors opener ‘The Sea’, and if reading ‘The Bible’ was actually half as exciting as Hooker makes it sound via the ass-blasting majesty of his song of that name (“..father of the dragon / and the son of man!”), I’d probably be writing this from the reading room of the nearest Jehovah’s Witnesses temple. Seriously, I don’t care how much the Xtian stuff outs you off, if you like slightly off-kilter rock music, you should look it up – it’s awesome.

And, well, I mean… what else can I tell you? I must have listened to this album a hundred times over the years (on mp3 before I acquired the vinyl this year, natch), and still it leaves me speechless. D.R. Hooker, if you’re out ther somewhere, you strange, chemically-altered Jesus-imitating, guitar-strumming mystery motherfucker, know that you RULE, and that I love you for it.

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A note on the label that put this out: as far as I can ascertain, the original D.R. Hooker LP was issued on the amusingly monikered “VAG Records”. To my surprise meanwhile, it turns out that the somewhat unsavoury sounding “Veals and Geeks” label is actually a spin-off from a record shop of the same name in Brussels, and they have previously released a number of other things. Therefore, I can only assume that the fact their name allows them to re-use the ‘VAG’ acronym on their ‘almost exact repress’ style packaging of “The Truth” is nothing more or less than a happy coincidence.

Anyway, whatever - you can stream and buy it from them straight from their Bandcamp here.

Labels: best of 2016, comps & reissues, D.R. Hooker