Letting his freak-folk flag fly, Elvis Perkins shakes things up

Confronting the death of his father, Psycho actor Anthony Perkins, from AIDS, and his mother who was a passenger on one of the planes that flew into the Twin Towers on 9/11, he did more than his fair share of ‘crying’ on cathartic debut Ash Wedenesday (2007). He did his ‘denying’ on follow-up In Dearland (2009), recruiting a full band and adopting a mystical folk-rock boogie to wash away the personal melancholy, and now, well, he certainly isn’t ‘complying’.

Even that little line comes not as a bombastic, tearful, "I Will Survive" moment of strength but tucked away on "Hogus Pocus" - a surrealist jaunt about a man who has a pig’s heart transplanted into his body and ends up refusing to eat bacon and starts to do “much more squealing”.

Originally the album was intended to be recorded in two days, with Perkins just stripping bare the essence of his thoughts and feelings on an acoustic guitar. It ended up taking more like three years to complete, and though it was made mainly at his home in New York and has that rough, lo-fi feel, he has created an intricate, eccentric fantasy world full of weird characters and abstract, disorientating melodies.

Opening track "On Rotation" sets the tone by blowing in on gust of wind and rumble of thunder, making it feel like Perkins is lost in a hallucination and having flashbacks to previous loves and childhood memories. The dark, twisted fairytale aura continues on hypnotic lullaby "& Eveline" and the doomed ballad "The Passage of a Black Gene", whilst the twisted maudlin of "I Came For Fire" could be Syd Barrett singing a medieval minstrel tune.

Pitched somewhere between Will Oldham and Devendra Barnhart, the evolution of Perkins from a rootsy, alt country troubadour into a freak-folk outsider, is difficult to come to terms with at first listen. The scattered emptying of the darker corners of his imagination leads to occasional glimpses of crooked beauty alongside a heap of experimental, warped, daydreams.

Overall it feels like a real thrift shop of curiosities with a few gems to be found if you go looking. And if you do, be prepared for a fair amount of sifting.