"Hurley was a modern master of the sideways drift in terms of both lifestyle and musical composition. I knew him pretty well for over 40 years, and you rarely had a clue when or where he'd turn up, or what the heck he'd want to do once he was around. For many years he was an outright vagabond alighting for spells in Philadelphia, Martha's Vineyard, Northern Vermont, Richmond Virginia, Southern Ohio, Western Massachusetts, and so on."
"Within his orbit, events unfolded at their own pace. Which makes this album a fitting capstone for a trajectory - there's just no way to call it a career - that stretched back 60 years. Broken Homes And Gardens is not his best record, but it is an absolutely pure statement of where he was at for the last few years, and is a sheer pleasure to hear."
Michael Hurley died on April Fool's Day. He embodied a sideways drift in lifestyle and musical composition, living as a vagabond for decades in places like Philadelphia, Martha's Vineyard, Northern Vermont, and Richmond, Virginia. He moved slowly, resisted rushing, and often sought gigs, art supplies, painting, or storytelling while staying in friends' garages or basements. Broken Homes And Gardens functions as a late-career capstone to a sixty-year trajectory. The album captures his late-period sound—pure and pleasurable even if not his best—recorded at his Oregon home studio with Portland-area collaborators; four of eleven tracks update earlier material.
Read at The Wire Magazine - Adventures In Modern Music
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