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“You who stand, sit, and crawl around and about the floor,
about you and above you, on the ceiling – that madness that’s running in color
is your brain!
Ken Kesey
at The San Francisco State Trips Festival, 1966
ANTHONY REYNOLDS
JUST SO YOU KNOW
A bewitching slice of folk whimsy to start the show – Just So
You know appears on the EP THE BEES DREAM OF FLOWERS AND YOUR SUMMER’S MEADOW
BREATH, a companion piece to Welsh
artist Reynold’s debut album BRITISH BALLADS, released in 2007. It features Vashti
Bunyan on vocals, whose ethereal voice floats like gossamer through Simon Raymond’s (ex-Cocteau Twins) production.
Lovely
DR STRANGELY STRANGE
STRANGELY STRANGE BUT ODDLY NORMAL
More pastoral folk of the hippy-ish variety from Dr Strangely Strange, Ireland’s answer to the Incredible String Band, from their debut album,
the Joe Boyd produced KIP OF THE SERENES, released in 1969 and perhaps just a
bit more rooted in melody and structure than the group’s flaky Scottish
counterparts (I’ve tried and I’ve tried but I just don’t get The Incredible
String Band).
JULY DANDELION
SEEDS
July, more or less quite rightly, are often considered also-rans
in psychedelic circles. Returning from the continent in time to find that Pink
Floyd had just finished in the Abbey Road studios, they moved straight in and
came out with JULY, released in 1968. It fails to capture the giddy heights of
PIPER AT THE GATES OF DAWN, but does contain a couple of stone cold classics,
Dandelion Seeds being one of them. Just when it seems it's getting into an
extended jam, an eerie slow passage is super-imposed over the beat in what is
considered, in some circles, as one of the greatest moments in psychedelic history
ever.
KOOBAS BARRICADES
The Koobas were one of the great lost bands of the 60's. They
started off all Merseybeat, even got themselves managed by Brian Epstein for a
while, but produced nothing that was ever worth jumping up and down about. By
1968 they were ready to call it a day, but before they went managed to produce
this sprawling psychedelic monster of a track that can be found on their only
album THE KOOBAS, released in 1969. It manages to sound like no other track
released in the 60's.
THE LIQUID SOUND COMPANY
SADHANA SIDDHI
This band, which pretty much sound like they say they do,
seems to be the side project of John Perez, of doom metal band Solitude Aeturnus.
Sadhana Siddhi is taken from their debut album EXPLORING THE PSYCHEDELIC,
released 1996, which, like their name suggests, pretty much does what it says
on the label. They create huge psychedelic waves of sound that put them
somewhere between Acid Mothers Temple and Hendrix’s And the Gods Made Love,
from ELECTRIC LADYLAND, in which his guitar seems to melt out of the speakers.
Marvellous.
DEUTER SURAT SHABDA
Enough with the Hindu titles, already – Deuter is one of the
lesser known krautrock artists and AUM, released in 1972, from which this track
is taken, is a cruelly-underrated part of the canon. It’s a dark, peaceful, spacy album with a
deep tantric feel – all sitar and bongos that’s up there with those tripped out
meditative pieces by Ash Ra Tempel.
MELLOW CANDLE SHEEP
SEASON
Acid folk doesn't get any more atmospheric or beautiful than
this, but the record buying public disagreed and after releasing just one album
in 1972, the very fine SWADDLING SONGS, the group split up. These days, of
course, it's considered as something of the holy grail of folk rock albums and
you can't buy the album for love nor money. That's what a spiraling two
way soaring vocal harmony is supposed
to sound like, just in case you wondered.
SYNANTHESIA PEEK STRANGELY AND WORRIED EVENING
Synanthesia’s only album, simply named SYNANTHESIA, released
in 1969, was one of those records that simply got lost as the world left the
sixties behind. It was legendarily recorded in two days, live in the studio
with no overdubs, and yet remains a quiet joy for those lucky enough to come
across it. Like Dr. Strangely Strange, they’re indebted to The Incredible
String Band, of course, but Synanthesia are a gentler affair with mostly flute,
vibraphone and acoustic guitar accompanying the melodies. Lovely.
THE SOFT HEARTED SCIENTISTS BROTHER SISTER
This song kills me every time I hear it. I don't know whether
it's the children crying when it was time for his brother to move on, or his
sister and her cat in San Francisco who he wishes that he saw more often, but
this song just stops me in my tracks and puts a big lump in my throat. The fact
that it's also a giddy slice of playful Welsh psychedelia also helps - I swear
they must put something in their tea over there. You can find it on their debut
album UNCANNY TALES FROM THE EVERYDAY UNDERGROWTH, released in 2005, which
collected together their first 3 EP's. It's one of my favourite albums ever - I
once spent a very agreeable sunny afternoon listening to it on repeat under
enhanced circumstances and wrote them a letter straight after telling them how
great I thought they were. They even replied, telling me that they thought I
was great, too.
ORANGE BICYCLE A
TRIP ON AN ORANGE BICYCLE
Sometimes it's all in the title - A Trip On An Orange Bicycle
tells you almost everything you need to know about this track. Released in
1968, from the album ORANGE BICYCLE, before switching onto psychedelia they
toured under the name Rob Storm and the Whispers - nuff said.
GO HOME PRODUCTIONS
2000 LIGHT YEARS FROM BOLAN
The only mash-up on tonight's show is taken from Mark
Vidler’s second album SPLICED KRISPIES, on which he plays around with his first
love, psychedelic music, and TV ads (anyone who's ever heard Wouldn't it Be
Nice To Have A Finger Of Fudge won't forget it in a hurry). 2000 Light Years From Bolan (mashing up Marc
Bolan with The Rolling Stones, of course), is a track that simply struts around
your headphones looking for something to shag and is available as free download here.
GOLDFRAPP HAPPINESS
(BEYOND THE WIZARD'S SLEEVE REMIX)
The fact is, that if you're ever lucky enough to hear this
track under euphemistically enhanced circumstances you will appreciate that
Alison Goldfrapp has the voice of an angel. I have never heard anything that
comes close. It is a pure, exquisite and transcendent delight, and I don't say
this lightly; in the hands of Beyond The Wizard's Sleeve you also have
beautiful multilayered piece of music to explore. The original (which is not
without its own charms), can be found on their album THE SEVENTH TREE, released
in 2008. This was the album wherein they discovered a gentle vein of pastoral
folk with which to delight their listeners. With their next album they decided
to be The Pointer Sisters.
ADRIAN CORKER
ADDERBURY CREATION MYTH/SPRINGTIME
Two tracks from one of the most unusual albums of 2011, Adrian
Corker’s WAY OF THE MORRIS, the
soundtrack to a documentary charting the history of Morris dancing in the UK. Corker, of underrated experimental folk
types Corker/Conboy takes the rich tradition of British homespun folk music as
his starting point, and then, over twenty-two tracks, explores a landscape of
birds, church bells and spooled tape, interspersed in amongst delicate folk
dances and deadpan vocal recitals in a very understated way that
bespeaks of Britishness and village greens. Quite simply, it’s gorgeous.
THE ALIENS BOBBY’S
SONG
The opening track from the second and, so far, last album by
The Aliens, LUNA. I understand that, after taking a year off to pursue other
projects, a third album might be in the pipeline and I, for one, am holding my
breath, what with being a big fan of their woozy psychedelia and all.
THE EIGHTEENTH DAY OF MAY
THE HIGHEST TREE
I love this track. It's probably my favourite on this
evening's show - it never makes me feel less than joyful, and possibly up for a
bit of dancing if someone was able to produce a fiddle from behind a convenient
hay stack. The Eighteenth Day of May only made one album, THE EIGHTEENTH DAY OF
MAY, released in 2007. It sounds like they grew up listening to their parent's
early Fairport Convention albums, but try as I might I can't think of anything
wrong with that.
MOON WIRING CLUB
POWDER AND CRINOLINE
Spooky going’s on of a hauntological nature from Ian
Hodgson’s Moon Wiring Club, with a track from his 8th album TODAY
BREAD, TOMORROW SECRETS, released in 2012.
VOICE OF THE SEVEN THUNDERS KOMMUNE
The last time I heard of Rick Tomlinson he was operating
under the name Voice Of The Seven Woods and, in 2007, had released a beautiful
album of intricate, acoustic, acid-folk meanderings of a slightly rustic nature
of the same name. At some point following that release he happened upon a book
of apocalyptical prophecies dating back to the late 1800s which seemed to cause
not only a name change but something of a change in direction too. On his
second album, VOICE OF THE SEVEN THUNDERS, released in 2010, the bucolic
loveliness of his first has been augmented by krautrock rhythms, tape loops and guitar workouts that, as opener
Kommune attests, can only be described as blistering.
THE BEATLES THE
INNER LIGHT
Not really a Beatles record in the same way that Yesterday
isn’t strictly speaking a Beatles record. It was recorded by George in Mumbai,
for a start, and featured local musicians assembled by Harrison to provide
soundtrack music for the film Wonderwall, although Lennon and McCartney do
provide a few backing vocals. Released in 1968 as the b-side to the avowedly
rockier Lady Madonna, it was apparently inspired by a letter Harrison received
from a Sanskrit scholar at Cambridge who suggested that he might like to put into music a few words from
the Tao Te Ching perhaps - number 48, page 66 of the book, for example. Paul is said to have liked the melody.
THE AMORPHOUS ANDROGYNOUS
OPUS OF THE BLACK SUN
The marvellous Amorphous Androgynous with a lovely acoustic track
taken from their 2008 release THE PEPPERMINT TREE AND THE SEEDS OF
SUPERCONSCIOUSNESS which verily doeth what it sayeth on the label.
OSYMYSO FIVER TO
BIGWIG
This is a bit unfair, isn't it? If I've done my job properly
I've led you up the garden path and left you there dazed in some pastoral
psychedelic reverie, then I play out with this track by Osymyso which, I don't
know, just seemed to fit. Anyway, you can't take these things too seriously and
just for the record, you can find it here He's also the
creator of BRINGS YOU THE ART OF FLIPPING CHANNELS, which is an excellent mash
up of sounds and 1970's TV show themes, so he's not entirely evil.
THE TAPE-BEATLES
MICROPHONE BURNING IN FLAMES
Another track from A SUBTLE BUOYANCY OF PULSE, released in
1988 and something of a get-out-of-jail-free card as far as Mind De-Coder is
concerned. This is from when cut-n-paste was something that you did in the
privacy of your own home – there weren’t functions on your PC to do it all for
you.
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