(American Primitivism, Folk, Blues, Psychedelic Folk) [WEB] Don Bikoff - Celestial Explosion: composia for 6-string guitar (1968) - 2013, FLAC (tracks), lossless

The original 1968 pressing of Don Bikoff’s Celestial Explosion LP on Keyboard Records has become a rare and sought after item in the American primitive movement of the 60’s and 70’s. I had heard about this LP when I was heavily into the sounds of John Fahey but not in the most welcoming light. Fahey despised his name being referenced in the linear notes for Celestial Explosion and this would put a shadow on the works of Bikoff for years. I was curious to know why he shunned it and after hearing it one time through I can boldly say Fahey was intimidated of the feelings and emotional weight Bikoff achieved. This was phrasing and tone inflections that represented the natural and cosmic world of finger picking with the outer extensions of world composition. Pop to raga’s and ancient Japanese music to country blues, it’s a sound you can’t put solely into one space but can feel deep into the ethos of the worlds collective vibration.
With heavy weights such as John Fahey and Robbie Basho claiming thrown to the American primitive movement, the resurfacing of Bikoff’s sole masterpiece with Tompkins Square this month for a full reissue has raised questions to this crowning in my mind. Different in approach though, Bikoff has a personality in his music that is more positive, contains more happiness towards life and dives into more of the spirituality of the east and humanity. You can hear the lush acoustic work of the late Beatles work even, creating a fusion in acoustic form that is unparallelled, exciting and meditative. Closing my eyes, I felt a jolted sense of experience that has not left me and has left me somewhat speechless on individual tracks.
With some of the music on Celestial Explosion, the acoustic is processed into subtle effects that change the tonal quality of the guitars to heightened form. With purists in every corner of this genre shying away from these subtle electronic additions, I feel they are welcomed expansions to the genre’s somewhat draft tone spectrum. Regardless of the effects, Bikoff is a master at finger picking, bends and pulls, pouring emotional resonance into his notes as if he were a master of the sitar and was inside a deep raga.
Don Bikoff is still a very active musician in these times and is now getting the proper credit he deserves with the restoration project Tompkins Square took on for Celestial Explosion. Every part of this album sends chills up my spine and puts me deep into a meditative mood. Easily the most powerful and important reissue of the year so far, this is music I’ll take with me to the end.
-Erik Otis
(Tompkins Square)
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