Little Eyes

Ed Askew | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 9, 2007)
• Original Release Date: 2007
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: De Stijl
• ASIN: B000VDDBK2
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #301,076 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars NOTES ON LITTLE EYES, October 15, 2007

By 

Edward C. Askew "ED ASKEW" (NY NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Little Eyes (Audio CD)

This recording was originally made in New York, 1971' when I was living in New Haven.

My concept was to produce something like a live, continuous performance with no dead space between the songs. To do this I recorded everything; retakes, mistakes, studio noises, etc. in one continuous session. Later, I went back and edited the sounds between the songs, and re-recorded two songs. Just before Old Mother Moon I made a little collage by way of introduction.

I hope you like this early recording of mine. ED

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Freak Folk?, October 23, 2007

By 

T. M. Orange - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Little Eyes (Audio CD)

Thank god Byron Coley is around to tell us what's cool and why! As his liner notes explain, this is the legendary second, never before released recording from Askew, who debuted on ESP-Disk, the pioneering NY indie label of the late 1960s that included the occasional folk oddity in the midst of a catalogue dominated by free jazz luminaries (Albert Ayler, Ornette Coleman, Sun Ra). And Little Eyes is quite a treasure indeed. Accompanying himself primarily on harmonica and tiple -- something of an overgrown mandolin that under his strumming often sounds like an autoharp -- Askew wends his way through one strangely fascinating and beautiful little ditty after another. The imagery is largely natural and elemental (sun, moon, sky, water, fire), occasionally a little surreal (k7), very Romantic, altogether apolitical and borderline visionary/religious. Obvious touchstones are Dylan (especially on the tracks w/harmonica), though Askew's voice actually sounds more like Tiny Tim. Roky Erickson's Never Say Goodbye and Daniel Johnston are other possible damaged folk touchstones here, but this really goes alltheway back to the swooping falsetto of John Jacob Niles. And with all the recent interest in freak folk, why not go back to the real deal? Askew's otherworldly tenor warble is a genuine American original & a reminder that label "freak folk" is in fact redundant.