Pearls Before Swine – Balaklava (ESP-Disk 1968)

Legendary acid folk band from Florida. They inspired a whole world of artists within this kind of folk music, and that had a lot (or practically everything) to do with the genius that formed Pearls Before Swine: Tom Rapp. It’s his poetic visions, transferred to sound, that make up the essence of this band. Well, that and his heartfelt understated vocals. This was a psychedelic band, yes, but on their own terms. No flashy gimmicks here, and the music is mostly of the tranquil and thoughtful kind. At the same time, their lyrics also dealt with war and harsh politics. Musically speaking this is very acoustic oriented, even though you’ll also hear some wind instruments and the rare electric guitar on their earliest albums. ‘Balaklava’ was their second album, and a classic like their debut. It starts with some weird monologue by what sounds like either a religious madman or some solitary military freak. It then segues into the magical ‘Translucent Images’. It’s hard to descibe a song like that – you just have to hear it for yourself. ‘Images of April’ is another favourite of mine. It has this dreamy feel to it, but that can be said about a lot of their stuff. ‘There Was A Man’ is a totally acoustic song, and really sad. I also love their cover of Leonard Cohen’s ‘Suzanne’, with some sparse flute arrangement added to it. Tom Rapp is a totally different singer than Leonard Cohen, but this cover feels just right. ‘Guardian Angel’ is another gem of reflective dreamy folk. All in all, this album was another masterpiece by a band that not too many seem to know about. A shame really, as they did beautiful music that deserves to be heard by many more.