Bob Desper

Accidentally blinded at adolescence, the Portland-based Bob Desper released just one record-- in 1974, and limited to a 500-copy pressing on a local Christian imprint-- before fading into the woodwork, leaving only this tiny morsel of music behind for anyone to find and follow back to its source. New Sounds is a classic lost record, though whether it counts as a lost classic is pretty relative, considering that even folk heavy hitters Nick Drake or Bert Jansch were once tagged as totally obscure by all but the most ardent followers of the form. New Sounds isn't the sort of record that would appeal to casual toe-dippers, anyway. Rather, it's the kind of recording, like Gary Higgins' similarly recently unearthed Red Hash, pretty much designed to be lost and rediscovered decades later.