Oar is the only studio album by American singer-songwriter Alexander "Skip" Spence, released on May 19, 1969, by Columbia Records. It was recorded over seven days in December 1968 in Nashville, and features Spence on all of the instruments. In case you missed this amongst the slew of recent releases from Music On Vinyl, we thought worth highlighting this cult classic: Voted number 510 in the third edition of Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums (2000)In 2013, the album was listed at number 8 on Ballast's list of top 50 Canadian albums of all timeThe album was also included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.In 1998, The Wire included Oar in their list of "100 Records That Set the World on Fire (While No One Was Listening)". The staff described the "brilliant" album as "a progenitor of both the loner/stoner and lo-fi movements", further adding: "Recorded on three track(!), absolutely solo, Oar represents a type of internalized psychedelic exploration that would not find a real audience for decades."CBS News write that despite the album's initial poor sales, leading to it being deleted, it "was later hailed as one of the greatest outsider albums ever released on a major label."
