Phil Keaggy: Underground (1983)

Tracks:

1. "What A Love"
2. "The Ransom"
3. "Deadline"
4. "Think About It"
5. "One In A Million"
6. "I Know Someone"
7. "A Glorious Sunset"
8. "The Two Of You"
9. "Paid In Full"
10. "What You Are Inside"
11. "Follow Me On"
12. "The Survivor"
13. "When I Say I Love You"

His early 80s Sparrow trilogy complete, Phil camped out in his home studio for a few months with a his guitars, synths, and a drum machine.  With only Bernadette to help on a few vocals, he rekindles the one-man band spirit of What a Day, 80s style.  Originally released as Private Collection Vol. 1, these home recordings would represent Phil Keaggy as the Mad Musical Scientist, concocting weird formulas and dangerous elixirs too volatile for any record executive.   Okay, maybe not that mad, but still, he was sitting simultaneously in the artist's, producer's, and engineer's seats, and that's always a setup for self-indulgent disaster.   

Luckily, Phil is not arrogant enough to let such freedom overwhelm his sense of taste.  The resulting stack of tapes were assembled by the tiny Nissi label and released as Underground in '83, and present the man in a boxy, pixelated environment that screams it time period like never before.  If you ever wondered what Phil Keaggy would sound if he were hanging out with, say, Jan Hammer, this is your album.  That's not to say it's a bad record, but it is what it was:  High quality demo material with all the trappings of any self-respecting songwriter of the day.  The ideas and sounds are probably as good as they would be had they been done in Hollywood or Nashville, just with fewer personnel. 

 
If there were a pick for a single, it would probably be the lead-off track "What a Love," a mid-tempo rocker that bops along on an electronic beat and a typically bright Keaggy chorus melody.  Of course, it's not the best song on the album.  There's "The Ransom," a brooding instrumental with a quasi-metal theme and icy keyboards, and probably the darkest thing Phil had written up to that point.  Another rocking instrumental is "Follow Me On," which indeed sounds like the successor of "Follow Me Up" from Master.  There's the retro 50s feel of "One in a Million," The moody minor key folk of "When I Say I Love You" (written for new daughter Alicia Marguerite), and the slightly-cheesy romance of "The Two Of You," where Phil plays wedding singer for some friends' nuptials.  All surrounded by the requisite keyboard beds, fills, and metallic drum beats.

But the best track is "The Survivor," a stirring song written from the perspective of a Holocaust prisoner.  With some of his best acoustic rhythm playing and a haunting melody, it's an unexpectedly heavy spot at the end of a relatively easygoing record.  The song proved to have some staying power, as Phil would remake it on his True Believer album.

It would be easy, and perhaps even a bit justified, to dismiss Underground as a dated, under-produced curio of 80s period pieces, made for the benefit of the artist and a few diehards.  And while there are some painful moments of oscillator overload, they're not enough to render the songs unlistenable.  Mostly, it finds its value as a fun experiment, which for Middle Period Phil is still worth a listen.