If the trend of private press record collecting has taught us anything, is that some of the best, most unique sounds are often the ones that are the hardest to find. This is indeed the the case for Sadaharu Ohm’s epic rural psychedelic opus, Last Ones Ever, which sat shelved and totally unreleased for an entire decade.

Sadaharu Ohm was a solo project of Crooked Hook’s Joey Maddalena, who completely wrote, performed and produced every one of the album’s tracks at his New Haven home. Each song is an absolute gem, glowing with white hot guitar licks, trance-inducing beats and warmly hallucinatory atmospheres.

Some moments of the album feel like Maddalena’s under the spell of the groove, letting the feeling of the song guide his words and guitar, like on the slinky and hypnotic “Slow Down Boogie Through The Cosmos.” At other times, like on the closing track, “Tuned in to Star Mountain,” the music appears to be methodically sculpted out of multiple overdubs, allowing for the production to very much become an instrument of its own. Either way, you walk away from the album with the feeling that you’ve just heard a master of composition and recording at the top of his game.

The sound on this record ranges from meditative Matt Valentine-meets-Magic Hour fuzz guitar centered jams (“Reflections In My Dreams, Sitting In A Tree”), to hazy acoustic dirges (“So Glad I’m Not of Your Order”) and lo-fi cosmic storms (“We Live on Star Mountain”). Whichever track you hear, you’ll be pulled into Maddalena’s singular world, and you’ll only want to explore it more.

When you discover that an album this good has been kept from the public for ten years, you start to wonder how many other unheard classics are out there. At least, it can be said in the case of Last Ones Ever, the wait was indeed very much worth it.

You can purchase a download of this peerless record here.

-KH

If you like what you’re reading, please help keep RCU thriving. You can show your support by becoming a Patron at our Patreon account or you can make a donation to our PayPal account below.

Every little bit helps!