by David Wilikofsky
In Alternative Canon, we take a closer look at an obscure or underappreciated album from the past that deserves more recognition. Some of these albums may be hard to find, but they’re always worth the effort to seek out.
We’ll get started with this gem, Frank Ianni’s No Moon Night. I was first turned onto this record by Emil Amos’ Drifters Symphony, a highly recommended podcast. Amos spends half the episodes of the show telling personal stories of his youth, and the other half highlighting favorite music releases in under-appreciated genres. This one popped up on a loner folk episode, and the song he choose jumped out at me instantly. That tune was “Sliding Sideways”
“Sliding Sideways” sounds like it could have easily been a radio hit with a label behind it. The song is an earworm. The narrator sings about a relationship gone wrong. He hears love songs on the radio, but his relationship is crumbling. It took me a while to cop a full copy of the record after hearing this song, but when I finally did the full LP did not disappoint. The title track adds some synth experimentation into the mix; tracks like “I’m a Little Lost” slow things down a bit. Often times I find that these kinds of loner private press records are anticlimactic when heard in full, but No Moon Light is fresh and engaging from start to finish.
Details behind the record are scant online, but some backstory: there seems to have been some falling out between Ianni and one of his collaborators, Cletus Black. Both released the same album under their own names with different titles and track sequencing. Black’s version, Suite 7 ~ Holly’s Drive, is as rare as Ianni’s. Both are long out of print, but some tunes are available on Youtube and other parts of the interwebs. If hearing country hits from an alternate reality is your jam, seek this out!
