It's one of the lost classics of the '60s, a psychedelic masterpiece drenched in colour and inspired by life, love, poverty, rebellion.
The album is Cold Fact, and what's more intriguing is that its maker - a shadowy figure known as Rodriguez - was, for many years, lost too. A decade ago, he was rediscovered working as a menial day laborer in Detroit, Michigan. He was unaware that his defining album had become not only a cult classic, but for the people of South Africa, a beacon of revolution.
Rodriguez recorded Cold Fact - his debut album - in 1969, and released it in March 1970. It's crushingly good stuff, filled with tales of bad drugs, lost love, and itchy-footed songs about life in late '60s inner-city America. 'Gun sales are soaring/Housewives find life boring/Divorce the only answer/Smoking causes cancer,' says the Dylan-esque Establishment Blues.
But the album sank without trace, thanks, in part, to some of Rodriguez's more idiosyncratic behavior, like performing at an industry showcase with his back to the audience throughout. When the follow-up, 1972's Coming From Reality, also sold poorly, Rodriguez called an end to his recording career. He'd never even played a proper gig. And he got on with life. Over the years, he turned his hand to local politics, gaining a degree in philosophy, factory work and eventually, hard labour.
Now, Light In The Attic is set to commit Cold Fact and Coming From Reality for an entire new audience, who can finally find out why - halfway across the world - Rodriguez is spoken of in the same reverent tones as The Doors, Love and Jimi Hendrix.
