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MALACHI - HOLY MUSIC - CD

Malachi – Holy Music

Evening Vibrations – Wednesday, August 17th 1966

1. Wednesday – Second
2. Wednesday – Sixth
3. Wednesday – Fourth
4. Wednesday – Fifth
5. Wednesday – Eighth

“He listens quietly to himself and then plays what he can of what he hears” – Allen Ginsburg

Recorded in San Francisco in August 1966, this collection of lengthy, acid-tinged folk instrumentals is one of the earliest psychedelic albums ever recorded, and makes its CD debut here. As the original sleevenotes state: “Malachi’s music transcends the traditions of East and West, and represents the new synthesis which is still being worked out in aesthetics, philosophy and religion by those participating in the psychedelic revolution.”

The mysterious Malachi was in fact John Morgan Newbern, a pioneer of so-called ‘new age’ music. Born to parents of Swiss and French ancestry in Baltimore, Maryland on November 28th 1944, he was expected to pursue a military career. However, a 1955 visit to Mexico (and especially Kukulkan’s Pyramid in Chichen Itza, Yucatan) radically altered his life’s path, despite parental disapproval. Determined to search for meaning in his life, Newbern embraced his generation’s burgeoning interest in Eastern spirituality. and recorded this album on Wednesday, August 17th 1966 (with help from future Red Krayola member Steve Cunningham on Jew’s harp), making it one of the very earliest psychedelically-themed albums ever taped. Verve had predictable difficulty categorising it, as it combined elements from several ancient world musical styles, but it sold respectably. Newbern played many gigs as Malachi in the late 1960s, especially for the legendary promote Chet Helms in and around San Francisco. The label, however, did not invite him to record a second album, leaving Holy Music his sole contemporary release. A practising Tibetan Buddhist, Newbern continues to make music to this day, both improvised and rehearsed, as well as writing on meditation and related subjects and building guitars.

“Malachi’s music transcends the traditions of East and West and represents the new synthesis which is still being worked out in aesthetics, philosophy and religion by those participating in the psychedelic revolution. Influences, to be sure, are there – thus music of India and of the American Indian – but most of all it is the music of the human spirit, of a universal nature evoking meditative explorations through all our senses. It is psychedelic music in the most honest sense, as is a Ute sun dance, a raga or Gaelic keening. Within ourselves, below the musical innovations of the last thousand years of European history, we hear a different drummer – and Malachi enables us to touch again that deeper self. He is not imitating, nor only combining different cultural patterns, but is discovering, as are many of this newly-awakened generation, those feelings, visions and sounds which have lain dormant under the conditioned ‘reality’ of Western civilisation. To listen to Malachi is to feel one’s oneness with Man.” – Michael Harner, Visiting Associate Professor of Anthropology, Columbia University, NYC

“Malachi approaches music in spirit of consciousness – meditation: altar, flowers, herbs, incense, silence, communion with selves, hush and darkness and improvisation. He listens quietly to himself and then plays what he can of what he hears. I guess he’s a white Indian, a new archetype among American new Persons. Poe would have enjoyed his presence.” – Allan Ginsberg

Recorded at Columbus Recording Studio, San Francisco

Engineer – Hank McGill

Designed by Dirigiblewerke, San Francisco

Art – Tad Hunter

Photography – Lisa Bachelis

Jew’s harp – Steve Cunningham

Produced by Jon Sägen and the Joint Effort

Director of engineering – Val Valentin

Concept and direction – Frank Werber

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