As he was growing up, a kid obsessed with comic books, horror movies and The Beatles, Daniel Johnston began to record songs building on those themes in his parents basement and trade them with friends. Over the years he moved around to Houston and Austin, but the modus operandi was the same- Daniel, crouched over in a basement or garage, letting his music flow in to a $59 Sanyo mono boombox. Although he originally moved to Austin with the intention of becoming a comic book artist before long he began playing shows and distributing his tapes. He quickly developed a loyal local following, so much so that when MTV filmed a ‘Cutting Edge’ special in the town, many locals suggested Johnston should be featured. That appearance exposed him to the wider American underground, and he was championed by the likes of Sonic Youth, Yo La Tengo and, perhaps most famously of all Kurt Cobain. From there his legend built on a story has had enough twists and turns to warrant not one but two movies, several books and numerous articles. It’s a story that involves joining the circus, exhibitions at the Witney Museum of American Art, plane crashes and periods of deep depression and bi-polar disorder. With all that hoopla and mythologies that surround Johnston often it is his music, the very thing that bought him to prominence in the first place, that gets overlooked. In the film, the Devil and Daniel Johnston not one song is given a full airing. Two reissues of some of Johnston’s earliest works set out to redress this imbalance.The first of the two re-releases, Yip-Jump Music was made when Johnston borrowed his nephews chord organ. It seems fitting therefore that the record should begin with ‘Chord Organ Blues', a frantic boogie-woogie driven by the organ as a melody and percussive instrument. Johnston follows this with his tribute to The Beatles, whose influence was to become a recurring theme through out his work. A stomping number built around the chord organ once again, Johnston’s genuine expressions of fandom stands as a fitting tribute to a recently deceased hero in Lennon, with Johnston singing “I really wanted to be like him/ But he died”. This song, along with 'Speedy Motorcycle', 'Casper The Friendly Ghost' and 'Museum of Love', are some of Johnston’s most immediately accessible and catchy work. The limitations of his equipment, recording and ability seem to combine to give an intensely personal and intimate expression of Johnston’s songs. The repetitive nature of the chord organ allows the simple melodies to work their way into the listeners brain. Johnston originally recorded the tapes as gifts for his friends and family, a fact that gives Yip/Jump Music a free, unpressured feeling- an unhurried, unpolished document of one man capturing his creativity on to tape in his brothers garage.Although much of Yip/ Jump Music sees Johnston in upbeat mood, singing of rocket ships and comic book characters, interspersed with tapes of animal noises, it equally has a darker side. 'King Kong' sees him singing unaccompanied, almost without melody the tale of the titular character. There is a haunting quality to the plainsong delivery, a melancholy that is unsettling to listen too. Elsewhere, 'Sorry Entertainer' addresses Johnston’s inner demons as a discordant guitar gets abused underneath. 'l Remember Painfully' features lyrics of his obsessive love for his muse, Johnston’s voice cracking under the emotion, and it makes for a harrowing listen.The second reissue, Continued Story / Hi How Are You (The Unfinished Album) is in fact a combination of two releases. The former sees Johnston pair up with a band, Texas Instruments, and was originally issued in 1985. Although still resolutely lo-fi, the band fills out Johnston’s sound, and moves in a direction that his previous set up hadn’t allowed. 'Ain’t No Woman Gonna Make A George Jones Outta Me' is a likeable R&B number that allows Johnston to indulge his Beatles obsession (the album also includes a rather sparse but effecting solo cover of 'I Saw Her Standing There'). 'Her Blues' carries on with the dirty R&B sound. Elsewhere the band prove to be a much more discordant influence, adding distortion and multi-tracked vocals. Perhaps as a result of playing with other people, much of Continued Story feels brasher and bolder, but slightly less affecting than Yip / Jump Music. That said the rowdy Beach Boys-esque 'Ghost of Our Love' is a highlight, as is the jazz-age show tune aping 'Etiquette'. There is also a greater reliance on spoken word delivery than previously, with vocals often multi-tracked and occasionally calling to mind some of the beat poets experiments with Jazz musicians.The pairing of Continued Story with the earlier Hi, How Are You? seems incongruous, the former being a band recoding far removed from the stomping chord organ arrangements of the later. Forming the later part of this reissue, Hi, How Are You? is the natural progression from Yip / Jump Music. Again using recordings of animal noises and other sounds in addition to his songwriting. On 'Keep Punching Joe', Johnston introduces himself and proceeds to sing over a swinging jazz record. There is a certain amount of self awareness in the lyrics as well: “I guess I lean toward the excessive/But that's just the way it is/When you're a manic depressive.” 'Walking The Cow', which sees Johnston again hammering away at the chord organ, is the standout track here, with its subtle key changes and vocal delivery that without doubt influenced future collaborator Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse. Johnston calls Hi,How Are You? ‘The Unfinished Album’ and it is easy to see why; many of the 15 tracks come in at less than a minute in length and contain mere fragments of ideas. It is something of a disappointment after the consistently excellent Yip / Jump Music.Regardless on your feelings towards Johnston’s delivery of the songs here, there is plenty on Yip / Jump Music and, to a lesser extent, Continued Story / Hi, How Are You? to showcase his abilities as a songwriter. For every lyrical insight or pretty ditty about love (it’s almost always about love), there are other times when things can become terribly self pitying and self-indulgent, 'Poor You' and 'Sorry Entertainer' serving as particularly cringe-worthy, and nigh on unlistenable examples. That said there is much more to Johnston than the mental health cabaret of the likes of Wesley Willis. Whether or not his talents will be enough to rise above the hipster rubbernecking and the cult of mental illness that equates credibility to mental anguish in the long run remains to be seen.