The incredible story of the dental hygienist Linda Perhacs who as a young woman in 1970 published a groundbreaking album which nobody noticed. Half a century later she discovered that it had gone worldwide on the Internet.
Linda Perhacs was discovered and then rediscovered. It’s only now that her unique talent is really being celebrated. The California-based singer/songwriter published a ground-breaking album in 1970 which went largely unnoticed at the time. The album might have been lost and forgotten completely had it not been for the rise of the Internet and New Weird America movement around 2000.
“It came out of thin air.” In the interview Perhacs talks of her inspirations, and she explains that her father’s family are deeply spiritual people who are guided by inner voices. She describes how she hears voices talking to her from above and within, and on occasion is able to actually visualize music, making drawings to help her remember these complicated musical sculptures.
Linda Perhacs worked most of her life as a dental hygenist in Beverly Hills, leading a quiet and solitary life, spending her free time on long walks in nature. When she was young, she had many hippie friends, and although she never went to concerts or did drugs, she was influenced by the hippie ideas.
Through her job for a dentist in Hollywood, she met lots of movie people, and became friends with award winning composer Leonard Rosenman, who realized her musical potential and decided he wanted to work with her. Today Parrallelograms, Linda Perhacs first — and for decades only — album is regarded as a psych-folk masterpiece. The album was reissued in 2005 and again in 2008. Perhacs songs have been featured in soundtracks to many films including Daft Punk’s Electroma. In March 2014 Perhacs’ released her second record The Soul of All Natural Things.
Linda Perhacs was interviewed by Christian Lund
Photography by Simon Veje
Editing by Kamilla Bruus
Produced by Christian Lund
Copyright: Louisiana Channel, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2014
Supported by Nordea-fonden
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