Out today: VICES by Kaspar Berry Rapkin
Kaspar Berry Rapkin and his Swampdogs return ahead of a new album with a catchy blues single.
I arrived at a cabin in the woods in the deep south, sometime around 1960. Ironically the only way I could find the location was via Google Maps, WhatsApp and a car that practically drives itself.
I found Kaspar in his kitchen, making old-fashioned coffee with a bean-to-cup machine that could probably fly to the moon in its spare time. Here is a man of contradictions, I thought, as I looked admiringly at his analogue music studio anchored by the latest iMac.
In preparation for our meeting, I had been listening to his previous album, the self-titled one featuring a cartoon dog from 2021. It's been a while for the Swampdogs, but Kaspar has at least a couple of other acts. He has just finished a busy week as Kaspar & Lucy.
What VICES does, reassuringly, is demonstrate that we are in the same neighbourhood as the previous album. This is proper old-time blues. As soon as I heard it, I was transported back to the Windsor Jazz & Blues Festival 1967 or the Marquee Club that same year. It was the year Fleetwood Mac formed as a blues outfit and played alongside Pink Floyd in the summer sun. There are reminders of Peter Green, among many others.
These guys seem happiest among the gravestones, as I am. As stars like Valley James are. And also Kitty Coen, which explains my presence here in these woods on an uncharacteristically sunny day. I connected with Kaspar after his Camden show with Kitty last month. He is wearing her trucker cap merch.
I find myself impressed and surprised that such a young troupe are so committed to the bluesman lifestyle. Because for KBR, this is not life and death. It is far more serious than that. He is not only a very talented blues musician, but he really lives the full lifestyle. I have seen butcher's sausages frying on a hot griddle at a time when most of our meat comes in plastic trays from plastic animals grown in factories.
This man is not a vegetarian. He appears to enjoy whisky as well as tobacco. Yet I was offered oat milk with my coffee, an offer I kindly declined. If you're tired of spinning old 78 shellac recordings of your favourite Mississippi bluesmen, worry no longer. You know what to do. And don't only take my word for it. The song has already been played by Cerys Matthews on BBC Radio 2. Give this a spin today!
You can contact Kaspar on Instagram and via his website. He tours frequently so book now to avoid disappointment!
Paul Dettmann
