Ray Wylie Hubbard delivers a cosmic masterpiece

"Ray Wylie Hubbard has been making some of the most compelling music this side of the Pecos just as long as good ole Jerry Jeff. In fact, Hubbard’s name belongs in any serious discussion about what was once known as “Outlaw Country,” a genre that gave the world such Musical Giants as Walker, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Townes Van Zandt, David Alan Coe, Kris Kristofferson and many more.

In the enigmatic “Enlightenment/Endarkenment,”; Hubbard has created an earthy masterpiece with cosmic themes worthy of great Outlaw music past and present. It captures the sub-surface zeitgeist of early 21st century America in a way that transcends musical styles and establishes itself as Musical Art, capital M and capital A intended.

To break down the songs one by one would simply be reductionism for its own sake – once you’ve allowed yourself to experience the album in its 46-minute entirety, it is impossible to conceive of “Enlightenment/Endarkenment” as anything but one house with 12 rooms. The album opens with the title track and the haunting lyrics “Tarnished and disgraced I lay down/ a black sparrow came to me in a dream…” to a hypnotic backbeat, simultaneously summoning a mood not unlike that which might be reached in considering Federico Garcia Lorca’s ideas of duende or reflecting upon Carlos Castaneda’s most introspective and insightful writings."

Full review:
http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/5556152-ray-wylie-hubbard-sings-of-light-and-darkness

vibrational alignment not so much with the song itself but with the energetic frequencies of which Hubbard sings."

Must be mushroom season down in Austin again.