Phil Gyford

Last week the New York Times had an interesting article about about the most underrated albums of 2002 (read it either at the NYT or pasted into this Yahoo! Group message). I haven’t heard of most of the artists listed, although a growing liking of country, thanks to John Peel, means I have a passing recognition of Mary Gauthier and Nina Nastasia. The article cropped up because this post on the Peel mailing list mentioned Akufen, who I’d never heard of. There’s an interview with him here. Turns out that he produces some rather wonderful music consisting almost entirely of samples, usually only a fraction of a second long. Frenetic and fun, his My Way album (US, UK) has my foot tapping rapidly in a freakily jerky and alarming manner. Which is always a good sign.