Willis Earl Beal is an anti folk musician who made his first imprints on the music scene through his DIY process. A hand-drawn flyer of his that included his name and phone number found its way into the hands of Davy Rothbart, who put the flyer on the cover of his magazine Found. Rothbart eventually released a limited edition box-set of Beal's poetry, artwork and a copy of his original LP. The album, titled Acousmatic Sorcery, was recorded on two cassette tapes with a karaoke machine. Regardless of Beal's dated technology, the 17-track effort, packed with haunting moments of vocals, guitar and lap-harp, earned him a contract with the XL imprint Hot Charity along with the likes of Thom Yorke, Jack White and Gil Scott-Heron.
