Otis Jordan - Net of Atoms

If you've yet to encounter Otis Jordan's music, then you might instead know him through his interest in that of others having curated the incredble Early Experiments in Recording Vol 1 (1976-2021) compilation issued by Hood Faire earlier this year. As a point of entry, that collection of wide-ranging outsider sounds and electic thinking is a good primer for approaching Net of Atoms, even if it is a distinctly better recorded set. Which is to say, Jordan's interpretation of folk is a broad one, lysergic, worldly, steeped in the mystery-of-the-countryside eerieness that characterises classic British psychedelia and underscored by an obvious DIY inventiveness. The label name checks Twisted Nerve, and it's a really useful means of making sense of Jordan's sideways-facing sensibilities, quixotic, melodic, dusty-fingered from flicking through past, and unless i've misinterpreted, Jordan too is based in the north west, a continuation of the lineage if you like. Other lines of connection may also be made to those early answerphone recorded Devendra Banhart records or the folksy outsiderdom of the Fence Collective, each themselves defined by their uniqueness. Which is the best you can say of Net of Atoms - evidence of an artist shaping a little defined space for themselves.