MOONDOG – The Story Of Moondog – LP – HJRLP107

Moondog learned to play drums on a cardboard box when he was five, and all of his work glistens with a strange rhythmic off-kilter heartbeat. This becomes the foundation for further percussion, chanting, saxophone (though that rarely appears on these early releases), occasional piano, tap-dancing, New York traffic, poetry, readings from the man himself and… tugboat horns. The music alone is remarkable by anybody’s standards but all these environmental snippets, the overheard conversations and the life of Moondog’s exterior surroundings transform the release into a surreal field recording- a shifting soundscape pivoting on the Viking’s inherent lopsided aural perception of the world.

Jonny Mugwump / The Quietus