Otis G. Johnson — Everything-God Is Love 78

Gospel songs or songs of praise come in many different forms & shades- going from the polished, showy & flamboyant, all the way through  to the quirky, raw, and off-kilter. “Everything-God Is Love 78” falls very much in the latter category. And this reissue of a 1978 album offers up eight slices of wonky, often wrong sounding, yet passioned songs of praise, which mix togeather Hammond organ playing with a fairly constant & locked drum machine pattern, & Mr Johnson’s wavering but sometimes oddly emotional singing.

There’s no doubt about it this Detroit native certainly has/had a fairly distinctively outsider/ wonky feel to his work, but sadly I can find little or no information about the man on the internet- he released this along with a split with David Schwan entitled “Receive The Power” both in 1978. Then had one or two other releases in the early 2000’s, though these look like reissues again, as they feature sort of hazed 1970’s/1980’s pictures of  Mr Johnson on their front covers.

As already mentioned the main element on this release are the Hammond organ, with which Johnson weaves out mainly wondering paths of keyboard textures that go from plonky to often off-tune trails of notes. There are hints at structure/ melody from time to time, but mainly each track plods & dirges along with the constantly simplistic & unmoving drum machine rhythm.  Johnson’s voice has a sort of slowed down & muffled soulful quality to it, and just like the music he sometimes goes off key too.

I guess “Everything-God Is Love 78” would appeal to fans of more outsider synth song such as writers  John Maus or Ariel Pink, instead of  your straight gospel fans. I can’t say this is an out & out masterpiece, or a un-discovered gem- as it’s not, but one thing it is is a great example of someone doing music & praise on their own wonky terms which in it self is a wonderful thing.