High Wire Music
2006
Continued Story / Hi, How Are You
About This Album
Gathering two of the albums Daniel Johnston recorded after he moved to Texas from West Virginia, High Wire Music's reissue of The Continued Story/Hi, How Are You features digitally remastered sound, lyrics to all of the songs, and a poster of Johnston's inimitable drawings. It also underscores how much his music was growing and changing at this point in his life. Though placing 1985's The Continued Story, which was Johnston's first studio-recorded album, before 1983's homespun Hi, How Are You seems like a strange choice at first, it works as a way to gradually get into the strange, mostly charming, and sometimes disturbing world that his music occupies. For the most part, the fuller sound and arrangements on The Continued Story strengthen Johnston's fragile voice and unique lyrics instead of overwhelming them. "The Ghost of Our Love" works especially well with the full-band treatment, its drums echoing the ghost's knocking on the door; meanwhile, "It's Over"'s overlapping vocals and intermittent crashing noises capture what made his home recordings so great but give them more focus, as later albums like 1990, Artistic Vice and Fun do.
Track List (try tracks 1,2,9,11,19 and 26)

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