Otis G. Johnson

For outsider gospel visionary and Detroit native Otis G. Johnson, the Holy Ghost was in the machine...in this case a rhythm-equipped Hammond organ. Everything - God Is Love 78, a singular 1978 mid-fi document, features android percussion against chords of Otis’s own invention, possessed by minor tonality and frequent bum notes. Lifting it further are extemporaneous vocal homilies to the rapture, love, and everything, plus occasional “other” voicings that scratch at the periphery of the mix. Homespun gospel rarely entered this dirge-like, intuitive space, nor did it commonly achieve such a spectral and captivating hymn to its darkest conventions.

• LP

  1 150g LP
  1 tip-on single LP jacket