Kontiki - Cotton Mather

The world of popular music is littered with great, lost albums, terrific records which somehow dipped beneath the public radar, only to be unearthed years later when the band members were either too old to rock out or had actually rocked completetly off of this mortal coil. Maybe the lost album is, in itself, a lost art. With the way music is now released in the digital domain and stored for perpetuity, no recording should ever be deleted and, therefore, lost? Think of Big Star and their first two records; two of the most glorious slices of Power Pop heaven you are ever likely to taste (I'm still not convinced about the "Third"). Out of step with the music of the early '70's, their hooks, melodies and achingly, beautiful harmonies languished in record collections of only the very knowing, until a fan chanced his arm and wrote a letter asking them to reform. The subsequent reformation unfortunately came to late for founding member Chris Bell who was killed in a motor accident in 198. Even if you were lucky enough to catch the new line up, Alex Chilton could never understand how these early and, to him at least, embarrassing songs were held in such high esteem.

Back in the late '90's(1997 to be exact)I got my hands on a copy of Cotton Mather's Kontiki CD and I was hooked from the very first listen. What the f*ck was going on in these songs? A vocalist (Robert Harrison) from Austin, Texas who sounded more like Lennon than Lennon, but also sounded like Sir Robert of Dylan in equal measures. Operatic interludes (I can dig that), audio bleed (lots of it), tape hiss (yum yum) and chock full of Power Pop hooks you'd sell your kids for. King Mono-Brow, Noel Gallagher liked it so much, he got Cotton Mather to support Oasis on tour! I saw the band in London about 4 times and even managed to have a great little chat with Robert Harrison about the recording of the record. Many years later I discovered him alive and well on MySpace and emailed him, mentioning our little chat. Gracious as ever, he even said he remembered it.

So, coming full circle and, even though he has been busy with his new band, Future Clouds and Radar, we find that Robert has decided to fund the re-release of Kontiki as a Kickstarter project. This basically enables fans to pledge money to the project in order to reach an agreed funding target. As long as you hit the target, the funds are released. The good news is that the target has already been met and the re-release is set for January 2012, thus ensuring that this great, lost album never goes M.I.A again.