Sea Changes and Coelacanths: A Young Person's Guide to John Fahey

In the 43 years between his first recordings and his death in 2001, John Fahey stomped across the American soundscape, leaving behind footprints of influence so breathtakingly vast that entire genres now huddle within them. Fahey's mesmeric guitar compositions fused the blues' syncopated rhythms with contemporary dissonance; eastern influences with musique-concrete. He was the first to demonstrate that traditional steel-string finger-picking techniques could be used to express a universe of non-traditional ideas, and his contribution to American music is immense. Sea Changes & Coelacanths compiles all of Fahey's mid-90s recordings for the Table of the Elements label and embodies an artistic essence, with sounds that are undiluted, uncompromised, starkly honest, pure of vision, and in every way innovative -- just like the man himself.