Seconds

When singer-songwriter Gary Higgins' obscure 1973 folk masterpiece RED HASH was reissued by Drag City in 2005, it caused quite a stir in indie circles. The back-story on the reissue: Ben Chasny of Six Organs of Admittance had been deeply influenced by the record and turned everybody he cared about on to it. One of those people was D.C.'s Zach Cowie, who called and wrote every Gary Higgins he could find until he found the right one and reissued the album. It's a gorgeous record, a collection of beautifully but simply articulated psychedelic folk songs that reflect the time period; it's timeless and still resonates. Anyone who hadn't heard SECONDS would understandably greet it with trepidation. After all, it had been 26 years since RED HASH and the man was much older; add to this the fact that second-chance efforts are just as likely to be flameouts as they are blessings. SECONDS is definitely the latter. Higgins, who performs with some of the same musicians who appeared on RED HASH, is in excellent voice and his guitar-playing skills are sharp, too. But more than this, his songwriting skills haven't gone down a notch. His is a non-judgmental, personal look at life that, while full of self-examination, also had a sense of humor to balance the tragedy. Compositionally, lyrically, and poetically, his writing here is a strange look into a window of timelessness--past, present, and future; for all the travails in his life, Higgins has come out unbowed, with a view of the world as a difficult, often tragic, but magical place. His elegant sense of melody is the underlying factor in his utterly understated but captivating approach to songwriting. SECONDS is a worthy successor to the classic RED HASH, but more than this, it is hopefully a new beginning for Higgins.