Oldham, Will & Rian Murphy

***BACK IN PRINT!!! Chicago’s music scene in the mid-'90s suffered through unwanted ITstatus, owing in part to hype garnered by Liz Phair, Urge Overkill, Smashing Pumpkins and others of their vile ilk. Meanwhile, the underground was a field thick with soon-to-be-typecast post-rockers, plus the vets of T&G’s '80s era, jazzers and other types of improv/freakout weirdos. Making records in town thus became a fun pursuit for Drag City, as any number of musicians might be perceived as being on-call to do a session for Smog, Edith Frost, Jim O’Rourke and/or whoever else! “All Most Heaven” attempted Motown-esque assembly-line record making: Will Oldham’s fetchingly odd demos were elaborately arranged by O’Rourke, who co-produced the basic tracks with Rian Murphy and a local wrecking crew, with a view to draw even more stars in to finish the project. When done, it was a most Left Banke-ish of Drag City records, without even a harpsichord in sight! The working title, “Murphy Does Oldham,” implied that this Murphy fellow would produce, which he did exclusively, with no vocal or instrumental parts contributed by the would-be Spector Jr. This didn’t keep him from hamming it up on the cover though! Features guest musicianship from the usual supsects JIM O'ROURKE, BILL CALLAHAN (SMOG), LAETICIA SADIER (STEREOLAB), RICK RIZZO (ELEVENTH DREAM DAY), ARCHER PREWITT, EDITH FROST, and DAVID GRUBBS.