MIND DE-CODER 51

To listen to the show just scroll to the bottom of the page

MIND DE-CODER 51

“Everybody go to hell with your fucking reality”

                                                        (Dieter Brinkmann, 1973)

LES BIG BYRD     WHITE WEEK

Fantastic krautrock vibes from Swedish psychedelic popsters Les Big Byrd, who bring a pulsating motorik beat to the proceedings on this track from their debut album THEY WORSHIP CATS, released earlier this year – all tripped-out, baroque garage psych-pop and rolling spaceflight grooves.

TWINK & THE TECHNICOLOUR DREAM     YOU REACHED FOR THE STARS

This is the title track from the 2013 release that saw psychedelic legend Pink team up with Italian psyche group The Technicolour Dream plus guest guitarist Brian Godding from cult underground 60’s act Blossom Toes. Although recorded in Rome it was remastered at the Abbey Road studios by Peter Mew who worked with two of Pink’s previous bands, Tomorrow and The Pretty Things back in the day. I mention this by way of reinforcing just exactly how marvellously mind-expanding this collaboration actually is – a tripped-out album, truly of itself.

THE GHOST OF A SABER TOOTH TIGER     XANADU

Not the best name in the world, although in fairness, the band are named after a short story written by one half of the duo, Charlotte Kemp Muhl. The other half, of course, is Julian Lennon and on their album MIDNIGHT SUN, released earlier this year, they channel the ghost of his father circa his just-pre and just-post Sgt. Pepper’s period, with some Syd Barrett-esque whimsy and some Rolling Stones right in the middle of their THEIR SATANIC MAJESTIES REQUEST period thrown in for good measure – a record that’s every bit as good as that list suggests, with just enough of its own sound about it to be slightly more than the sum of its influences.

THE MOODY BLUES     THE BEST WAY TO TRAVEL

This track is taken from the band’s second album IN SEARCH OF THE LOST CHORD, released in 1968, in which the band discover psychedelic mysticism in all its manifold glory. It’s a terrific album, featuring sitars, mellotrons, tamburas, tablas, oboes, cellos and flutes, all pretty much taken up by the band in the spirit of switched-on enquiry and more or less dedicated to Timothy Leary.

DOCTOR AND THE MEDICS     THE MIRACLE OF THE AGE

At some point I had to include a track by Doctor and the Medics because in many ways my love of psychedelia goes hand in hand with a club I used to go to back in the early 80’s called Alice In Wonderland where the Doctor used to DJ. To this day they remain one of the best live bands I’ve ever seen, and I must have seen them countless times (if not more), a melon-sized grin spread across my face. Sadly their live material never translated to the studio – their debut album was shockingly denuded of all the psychedelic elements that made their live shows so overwhelmingly joyful – but this single was produced by XTC’s Andy Partridge in 1985, just before fame and misfortune turned them in to a novelty act with their cover of Spirit In The Sky, and he nearly gets it just about right. I understand a version of the band is still doing the festival circuit but, really, you had to be there in 1984 to understand why they meant so much to me (and if you do, why not drop me a line and say hello).

COLORS OF LOVE      TWENTY-TEN

Colors of Love are one of those bands that remain a footnote to a footnote of the sixties. Twenty-Ten is a cover of a track released by Tinkerbell’s Fairydust (themselves a band that hardly loom large in a recollection of the sixties) as their second single, a record that failed to dent the charts upon its release in 1968 (although I read somewhere that it was big in Japan). This version by Colors Of Love appears on the b-side to what looks like their only single, Just Another Fly, also released in 1968. Or, as is equally as likely I suppose, maybe it’s the other way round and Tinkerbell’s Fairydust covered this version - who knows? – information about either band has been lost to the fairie mysts of tyme. This version though was produced by Alan Moorehouse, a producer more at home with Beatles-Bach-Bacharach Go Bossa Music For Pleasure productions, which I believe gives the track that splendid woozy feel. 

THE PRIMITIVES     FREE THE SHADOW

I loved The Primitive’s debut album LOVELY (1988); I thought it was the perfect encapsulation of buzz pop loveliness in which the joy of pure noise thrill was effortlessly balanced by sugar melodies and Tracey Tracey’s ice-cool delivery. Free The Shadow, though, with its eastern influences and backwards guitars is by far the best thing they ever did on an album that includes Stop Killing Me and Ocean Blue amongst its treasures.

SPROATLY SMITH     AFON GWY

Pastoral psychedelic loveliness from Hereford’s Sproatly Smith with a track from their album, the quintessentially acid-tinged PIXIELED, released 2010. Afon Gwy is the Welsh name for the River Wye, that mystic river that traverses the border between Wales and England. The Romantic poet William Wordsworth mentions the Wye, of course, in his famous poem "Lines Written a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey" published 1798 in Lyrical Ballads:

How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee,

O sylvan Wye! thou wanderer thro' the woods,

How often has my spirit turned to thee!

But then you already knew that.

JON BROOKS    POND I

This track is taken from the most recent album released by the hauntologically influenced Jon Brooks, he of the Advisory Circle. 52, released earlier this year on Ghostbox, is an album inspired by memories of his grandmother’s house and garden, comprising a collection of ghostly and desolate sonic pieces that pretty much evoke both hazy nostalgia and a sense of the otherworldliness that such shimmering memories contain. I sometimes think his grandmother’s house must have been next door to mine.

MATT BERRY     MUSIC FOR INSOMNIACS (excerpt)

In our house Matt Berry is best known for playing the magnificently moustachioed Dixon Bainbridge from The Mighty Boosh, but it turns out he’s something of a musician too, not adverse to dabbling in a bit of acid-folk prog when the mood is upon him. For his most recent release, however, the titular MUSIC FOR INSOMNIACS, released earlier this year, he was drawn towards Mike Oldfield’s TUBULAR BELLS, inasmuch as he’s created two 20-odd minute pieces which finds him exploring the middle-ground between ambient music and music that’s too hectic to be restful, inspired by a bout of insomnia he was wrestling with last year. There are numerous synths, bells, pianos, woodwinds, malleted percussion and found-sound (horses hooves, creaking doors etc.) crafted into something both lush and full of subtle moments, the results of which give the listener the effect of slowing down, moving backwards or stopping and resuming the journey in slow motion. I was tempted to play all of one side or the other, but settled for the first 11 minutes or so of side 1.

LAETITIA SADIER      QUANTUM SOUP

Lushly orchestrated retro-futurist exotica from Stereolab’s Laetitia Sadier who brings a jazz fusion vibe to the proceedings on her third solo album, the recently released SOMETHING SHINES. Her solo work is often dismissed as Stereolab without the irony, but Quantum Soup will bring a smile to the face of any fan of that band’s late period lavishly sophisticated elevator music.

RECREATION     MUSIC FOR YOUR DOG

THE NIGHT WAS CLEAN, THE MOON WAS YELLOW

 WHERE IS THE BAR, CLAY?

CALIGULA SUITE IN HORROR MINOR

Four tracks from an album that pretty much has to be listened to as one continuous piece but which, nevertheless, I thought I’d give you at least a taste of (tracks 2,3,4,& 5, in fact). Recreation were something of a Belgian prog-rock fusion group who, in 1972, released the album MUSIC OR NOT MUSIC, an album that contains gigantic swirl of sounds and a schizophrenic mix of endless tempo changes and strange time signatures. Let’s just say that if I was ever invited to DJ at a psychedelic gathering of some sort or other, I’d want this album playing in the lobby. If I was ever asked, I mean.

FOXYGEN     STAR POWER AIRLINES

                      COLD WINTER/FREEDOM

Foxygen seem to have taken something of a critical kicking for their third album …AND STAR POWER, a sprawling double album of wigged-out psychedelic rock excess – it even comes with four sections, including a suite, in which their alter-egos Star Power take over the reins, and a paranoid side (from which Cold Winter/Freedom is taken). Without doubt the album is indulgent and unhinged, and the two tracks I’ve chosen from its 82 minutes offer just a hint of the sonic mish-mash of styles that takes in the Velvet Underground, Led Zeppelin, Philly soul, the Rolling Stones, garage rock and beach party vibes – often in the same track. It’s as if the critics don’t quite know what to make of such an ambitious, lo-fi and experimental record, when all you really need to do is skin up, hold on to your hats and enjoy the ride.

RON GEESIN     IN ANTICIPATION OF OFFSPRING PART ‘W’ 

Ron Geesin has been distorting, reversing, chopping up, looping, and electronically treating every sound -- both musical and non-musical – he’s come across for the last 50 years or so in a career that has taken in painting, short stories, designing interactive sound and video-based art structures and installations, off-the-wall comedy, lecturing, and record production and creating charmingly quirky music for feature films, TV programs, commercials, and short promotional films. John Peel was a big fan (until he discovered punk) and this track appears on that JOHN PEEL PRESENTS TOP GEAR album, released in 1969, which I seem to have been playing a lot of recently. His other claim to fame is for his contribution to Pink Floyd’s Atom Heart Mother Suite, on which he provided the elegiac cello melody that somehow tied it all together. One day that bit of information will be lost to the mists of time (I understand it’s something of a millstone round his neck) and perhaps he will be remembered instead as the composer for a Trebor Mints ad, back in 1965.

KRAFTWERK     TONGEBIRGE

This lovely track is taken from Kraftwerk’s third album, RALF UND FLORIAN, released in 1973 and the one that was produced before they hit upon the familiar hypnotic pulse of 1974’s Autobahn. This would be the last time that the flute and guitar would appear on a Kraftwerk album, a bucolic hangover from their free-form experimental days – the rest of the album finds them introducing the use of synthesizers and vocoders into their sound, and the rest, as they say, is history. 

MIKE RATLEDGE      RIDDLES OF THE SPHINX SEQUENCE 5

Another album that insists on being listened to as one suite, former-Soft Machine member Mike Ratledge’s RIDDLES OF THE SPHINX is the soundtrack to a (frankly little known) film of the same name, released in 1977, in which the mysteries of ancient feminine matriarchal history are connected to what, at that time, was the current world of late 1970s Britain. The soundtrack is generally regarded as ground-breaking in its use of synth rhythms, synthetic melodies and 8-bit progressions. I’m assuming that the voice is from the film itself; whatever, the pieces have an endlessly inviting dreamlike quality to them that put me in mind of the likes of Delia Derbyshire’s own dream experiments. Of all the music on this evening’s show, this the album I recommend you track down.

BELBURY POLY     …AND THE CUCKOO COMES TO BELBURY

  

2006 saw the release of the EP MIND HOW YOU GO by Jon Brooks’ Advisory Circle, an alchemical distillation of the sound of TV Public Information Films in which Brooks poignantly captured the conflicted cluster of emotions involved in nostalgic longing; it was, by turns, spooky, catchy and witty and the perfect distillation of the hauntological philosophy. In 2010 he re-released the album with four extra tracks, including this track by fellow Ghostbox collaborator Jim Jupp who, as The Belbury Poly, brings a perfectly realised hallucinogenic quality to the track And The Cuckoo Comes.

MARK FRY     RIVER KINGS

Mark Fry will be forever associated with his 1972 legendary acid-folk classic DREAMING WITH ALICE, and if he’d never recorded another note that would have been enough to have ensured that his named lived on in hushed whispers amongst aficionados of that sort of thing. There was a gap of some 35 years between that and his next album, 2008’s Shooting the Moon, and this year sees the release of his fourth album, the sublime SOUTH WIND, CLEAR SKIES. It’s an album of bewitching, acoustic reverie at once both timeless and strange, full of wonder and sadness. River Kings is particularly lovely, exquisitely realised and sung with a dreamy, contemplative innocence, passingly reminiscent of the kind of English pastoralism associated with the likes of Kevin Ayers or Bill Fay. Gorgeous, in fact.

VASHTI BUNYAN      MOTHER

…and then we come to (the lovely) Vashti Bunyan whose recent album HEARTLEAP is quite simply exquisite; breath-takingly poised between memories, dreams, and moments of quiet wonder. I had a moment with this album recently; alone, late at night, a single candle burning, when I felt a state of grace descend upon me and I was literally lifted out of what Walter Benjamin, a German thinker who experimented with hashish and mescalin in the 1920’s, called ‘that most terrible drug – ourselves – which we take in solitude’.

PARK LANE PRIMARY SCHOOL, WEMBLEY     THE REMARKABLE EARTH MAKING

                             MACHINE

A recording about which remarkably little is known. It seems to have been released in 1974 by the children of Park Lane Primary School, Wembley, and it may have been written for them by a Mr. Iwo Zaluski, who may or may not have been the music teacher there at the time. It seems to be a folk cantata about the northern lights but other than that the internet is strangely quiet. It gets under your skin, though, doesn’t it?

GOAT     GOATHEAD

If the story is to believed, the current version of Goat stems from a loose and long-running collective of townspeople in Korpilombolo, a village with a population of a few hundred in the northwest of Sweden. The band claim that  their elders have performed under that name for many generations; this lot are just the latest kids of a tribe that were apparently deeply influenced by the arrival of a voodoo-practising witch doctor to the town many moons ago. Their debut album, WORLD MUSIC, released in 2012, certainly has a shamanistic quality to it – the band describe their lifestyle as "invocations, prayers, and total rejoice!" – and it’s aptly named too. Within its grooves you’ll hear a kaleidoscopic mix of far-flung sources including Fela Kuti, Funkadelic and the Spacemen 3 – all wah-wah fuzz and chanted vocals - not to mention home-grown folk pluckings of a communal nature. Celebratory and mind-bending, in equal measure.

SCARFOLK COUNCIL     THE GHOST OF MRS PAYNE (FIELD RECORDING)

On my most recent visit to Scarfield I was lucky enough to come across the following recording, as a kind of sequel to last week’s record by the children of Scarfolk Primary School to commemorate their music teacher, Mrs Payne, who disappeared in 1972, but whose body was found encased inside one of the thirteen ancient standing stones just outside Scarfolk. Forensic examination of the stone revealed that it had originated more than 300 miles away and historians could not ascertain how prehistoric man had transported it to Scarfolk, much less how Mrs Payne had found her way into a 300 million year old rock. The police reported it as a chance accident.

When the stone was broken into chunks and sold as 'Payne's Pain' souvenirs in the Scarfolk gift shop, purchasers began hearing ghostly music in their homes. Additionally, the music was heard at the stone circle where Mrs. Payne's body was found, as well as at the geological site of the stone's origin.

The souvenirs were recalled and buried at the centre of the stone circle in Scarfolk fields, now the only location where the music can still be heard, but only on the anniversary of the death of Payne's husband who found himself unexpectedly dismembered during a pagan ritual competition for the under 10s.

This is a field recording made from the stone circle.

Check out Scarfold yourselves here 

MATT KIVEL     KES

A gorgeous track from Matt Kivel’s DOUBLE EXPOSURE album, released last year, and one which channels the spirit of John Cameron’s magical soundtrack to the classic 1969 film of the same name. Kivel’s shimmering guitars are both pristine and spell-binding, threatening to dissipate at any moment. Elegiac, quite lovely and autumnal.

DELIA DERBYSHIRE AND ANTHONY NEWLEY     I DE-CODED YOU

As soon as I heard of the existence of this record I knew I had to hear it, and having tracked it down, I wasn’t disappointed; but then, with Delia Derbyshire involved, I pretty much knew that it would never be anything less that interesting. And it comes with a story, too. This rare and until now, unissued recording started life way back in 1966. It was written by the multi-talented Anthony Newley, maybe for a pop release, but possibly for an experimental British TV show he was working on at the time. Unusually he wanted some electronic backgrounds for his words, and so called in the help of Delia Derbyshire, moonlighting a little from the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. However, this doesn’t appear to be your classic Delia Derbyshire sound - what you get instead is Delia Derbyshire more or less inventing sampling in 1966 by utilizing a number of samples from other sources, standard BBC Radiophonic tape loops for SFX or white noise generation, and a fascinating edit of Evolutionen 5: Walt by Dutch electronic pioneer Henk Badings. And it fitted the show like a glove. This is my definition of what ‘never less than interesting’ means.

TOMMY STEELE     CRASH, BANG, WALLOP!

In her review in the New York Times, Renata Adler said the 1967 film Half A Sixpence, starring a energetically grinning Tommy Steele, "should be visually fascinating to anyone in a state that I think is best described as stoned”. And I thought: We-e-e-ll...

Facebook

MIND DE-CODER 50

MIND DE-CODER 50

“To use your head, you have to go out of your mind”

                                                                             Timothy Leary

WHITE NOISE & THE WELFARE STATE     A SILENCE IS REQUESTED IN THE ULTIMATE ABYSS

We get things underway with a track taken from the 1969 release JOHN PEEL PRESENTS TOP GEAR, an album of almost wilfully obscure acts that Peel was supporting at the time through his radio show Top Gear. White Noise, in this case represented by co-founder David Vorhaus, supplies the electronic treatment while backwards vocals, hypnotic rhythms and psychedelic noise is supplied  by art college freaks The Welfare State, a band, or possible hastily formed collective, about whom very little is known, except that they may have come from Bradford, Yorkshire. Peel himself adds on the sleeve notes that this mixture of "alchemists, an earth goddess, facts (?), monsters, perspex lutes, poets and freaks is weird but interesting." 

LES BIG BYRD    TINNITUS ÆTÉRNUM

Swedish psych-rockers Les Big Byrd with the mostly unpronounceable but fairly wonderful Tinnitus Ætérnum, taken from their debut album THEY WORSHIPPED CATS, released earlier this year. It’s an  album filled with beautifully melancholic melodies, poems of time-space continuum read through vocoders, cosmic clouds of filtered string machines, motorik krautrock rhythms, 12-string guitars, heavy trippy textures and wandering synths that cheer the soul and take the mind for a spin.

MORGAN DELT     MAKE MY GREY BRAIN GREEN

Some free-floating psychedelic vibes from Morgan Delt, who may be named after the protagonist of an obscure 1966 film starring Vanessa Redgrave called Morgan—A Suitable Case of Treatment, or he may actually simply be called Morgan Delt; it’s never made entirely clear. This is the opening track from this year’s eponymous debut album and is a pretty good indication of what a warped, tripped out affair it actually is – this, of course, is as much a warning as it is a recommendation.

MATT KIVEL     TETRO

This is the opening track from Matt Kivel’s debut album DOUBLE EXPOSURE, released in 2013, on which the singer creates the loveliest most fragile songs you’ll have heard his year and seems to wrap them all around the subject of death. Happily, this oughtn’t bum you out if you happen to be listening under enhanced circumstances because what he does on Tetro is so clever and so quietly beautiful with its looping guitar melody and almost celestial synths that you too might dissolve in wonder at the gorgeousness of it – a bit like the bit in the middle of this track. Marvellous.

CONNAN MOCKASIN     FOREVER DOLPHIN LOVE

Dreamy, cosmic playful psychedelia from New Zealand’s Connan Mockasin’s (Tant Hosford to his mum) whose debut album FOREVER DOLPHIN LOVE (originally released as PLEASE TURN ME INTO THE SNAT in 2010) is an album brimming with the kind of weird experimentation and pop sensibility that places it somewhere amidst the first three albums by Pink Floyd – this is a recommendation. It was re-released as FOREVER DOLPHIN LOVE in 2011 on Erol Alkan’s label – there’s a 13 minute Erol Alkan remix of this track that I must play next week.

TOUCH     DOWN AT CIRCE’S PLACE

The big thing that everyone knows about Touch (if they know anything at all) is that band leader Dan Gallucci co-wrote and played that organ riff on The Kingsmen’s junk-classic Louie Louie, so even if he’d never recorded another note in his life, his place in music history was secure. Their only album, TOUCH, was released in 1969 and by all accounts the recording process was a riot with the likes of Mick Jagger, Grace Slick and Jimi Hendrix regularly dropping into the studio to catch some of studio’s party vibe. The album itself is essentially one of America’s first prog albums, but Down At Circe’s is a psychedelic classic with flanged vocals, a spaced out guitar solo, trippy sound effects, and some far-out keyboard work. Obviously, the band sunk without a trace but Gallucci went on to produce The Stooges’ FUNHOUSE (which wasn’t half as much fun as this record) so managed to keep his finger in the semi-legendary pie.

ENNIO MORRICONE     COLLAGE N2

This little throw-away piece is from the soundtrack to the little known Italian movie ESCALATION, set in London during 1968, in which the son of an Italian businessman is swinging like a pendulum do amid the city’s flower children and gurus until he is kidnapped by his father and brainwashed into becoming a ruthless businessman (it ends badly for everyone). Ennio Morricone supplies a suitably experimental and slightly bonkers psychedelic soundtrack that included ideas and sounds never used in film before, such as overlaying sound effects produced by the human mouth, throat and larynx.

It works so well I have it drift off into the sound of an antique Pye valve radio running up and down the dial which in itself becomes swallowed by a few minutes from the cult film Berberian Sound Studio that Broadcast’s Trish Keenan was working on when she died. It all adds up to a little hauntological moment.

EUROS CHILDS     TRICK OF THE MIND

This is really quite lovely – the haunting Trick Of The Mind, all 14 or so minutes of it, is the closing track on last year’s SITUATION COMEDY, Childs’ 9^th solo album following the demise of Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci. It’s a hypnotic, almost vocal-free drone, but one that offers a truly epic odyssey of building pianos and ominous chords before sailing away in a harmonious cloud of Welsh psychedelia. Superb.

SYD ARTHUR     PARADISE LOST

A bit of overt psychedelic indulgence from Canterbury’s Syd Arthur whose particular brand of jazz-tinged folk-funk is part homage to their Canterbury forebears Caravan and the Soft Machine whilst at the same time the take-off point for some truly far out explorations of their own. Paradise Lost is the closing track of their 2012 debut album ON AND ON (not that there’s anything wrong with a bit of overt psychedelic indulgence).

BILL FAY     SOME GOOD ADVICE

Little known (let’s face it) Fay’s first single, Some Good Advice, released in 1967, was a charming slice of acid folk whimsy that barely touched the outer reaches of the charts. Later songs were of a more cosmically bucolic bent as Fay explored the meaning of life and nature of consciousness, deciding that a simple garden shed was a useful metaphor for the search for spiritual meaning, but I think this track is quietly wonderful.

THE TEMPTATIONS     PAPA WAS A ROLLIN’ STONE

Some psychedelic soul left over from last week’s show, Papa Was A Rollin’ Stone was originally recorded by The Undisputed Truth, a band put together to record producer Norman Whitfield’s more recherché psychedelic experiments. He recorded it again in 1972 with The Temptations who, it must be said, initially hated it, resenting the fact that Whitfield was spending more time on the music than their vocals. Then it became a number 1 single and the last great recording they ever produced, so it sort of grew on them after that. I think that it's sublime.

SPROATLY SMITH     HORNSEA COVE

Weirdlore freak-out from the enchanting Sproatly Smith. Hornsea Cove is the tripped-out experimental one on the sublimely lovely PIXIELED, released in 2009, and currently the album that’s rarely off the turntable these days.

MOON WIRING CLUB     FACT MIX 310 (excerpt)

Hauntological musings from Ian Hodgson and 10 minutes or so from the Moon Wiring Clubs mix for FACT magazine (the on-line’s premier music magazine, FACT fans) a few years back. You’ll hear the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, David Toop, Julia Holter, Siouxsie & The Banshees, Autechre and Stanley Holloway in this 10 minutes alone, in a mix that otherwise takes in the likes of Warren G, Snoop and Dr Dre fraternising with Ian ‘Lovejoy’ McShane; Wiley and Terror Danjah sharing war stories with Scott Walker and Tangerine Dream; H.G. Wells, Carl Craig and Timbaland and Nurse With Wound; all in just over an hour. As you can Imagine, I was tempted to play the lot. Check it out here.

JULIAN COPE      WODEN (excerpt)

A 10-minute excerpt from Julian Cope’s WODEN, otherwise a vast and atmospheric 72-minute ambulant meditation upon Waden Hill and Avebury, recorded in 1998 and released in 2012. The first 35-minutes or so is mainly a field recording taken around Silbury, and very fine it is too; many is the time I’ve sat myself down there and pondered upon the nature of this and that. Then what sounds like a kettle goes off, it starts to rain, the Yatesbury bell-ringers join in and the mellotron picks up the pace a little and the piece turns into one enormous meteorological cloud of music. You get the bit in the middle where the kettle boils. As Copey himself says, WODEN is a highly useful meditative aid, but it’s even better for gaining access to the Underworld, the vast weather formations of sound guaranteeing that Hel’s doorway remains open for 72 minutes at a time (or, in this case, 10-minutes).

SCARFOLK COUNCIL     THE CHILDREN OF SCARFOLK PRIMARY SCHOOL WITH THE MUSIC WINDOW OPEN MAY 13^TH 1975 

 

Like all good hauntologists, writer and designer Richard Littler has given himself a whole town to play with. Belbury Poly’s Jim Jupp has Belbury, the Moon Wiring Club’s Ian Hodgson has Clinkskell, and now there’s another location on the hauntological map to explore; welcome to Scarfolk:

Scarfolk is a town in North West England that did not progress beyond 1979. Instead, the entire decade of the 1970s loops ad infinitum. Here in Scarfolk, pagan rituals blend seamlessly with science; hauntology is a compulsory subject at school, and everyone must be in bed by 8pm because they are perpetually running a slight fever. "Visit Scarfolk today. Our number one priority is keeping rabies at bay."

                                                                  (From the Scarfolk Council website)

Back in 1975 the children of Scarfolk primary school released their own 45rpm record to commemorate their music teacher Mrs Payne who disappeared in 1972, but whose body was found encased inside one of the thirteen ancient standing stones just outside Scarfolk. Proceeds from the sale of the single went toward the building of a new coven and affiliated gift shop.

I’m off to explore. Thank you for listening.

Facebook

MIND DE-CODER 49

To listen to the show just scroll to the bottom of the page

MIND DE-CODER 49

“My soul has become psychedelicised!”

                                                      The Chambers Brothers

CURTIS MAYFIELD     (DON’T WORRY) IF THERE’S A HELL BELOW, WE’RE ALL GOING TO GO

This fairly incendiary track was the single taken from Curtis Mayfield’s debut solo album following his break with The Impressions. CURTIS, released in 1970, was produced by Mayfield himself and represents one of the most dynamic, progressive soul albums of its time, pulling together a rich musical canvas of r’n’b, psychedelia and dance floor grooves (this is the album that also included Move On Up, a track which, rather embarrassingly as I approach 50, seldom fails to get me on to the dance floor whenever I feel the need to shake what remains of my tail feather - of course, this often results in broken items of furniture and solicitous friends helping me to my feet, followed by a good lie down, so it doesn't happen very often). I think at some point after this release he may have become a spokesperson for his generation, which must have been tiresome.

NEW ROTARY CONNECTION     I AM THE BLACK GOLD OF THE SUN

The Rotary Connection were an experimental psychedelic soul band who, almost semi-famously, included one-time record label receptionist Minnie Riperton sharing the vocals. The gorgeous I Am The Black Gold Of The Sun, is the out-standing centre piece of their final album HEY, LOVE, released 1971 as the New Rotary Connection, an album in which they introduce a jazz fusion vibe to the mix to produce something of a funky-assed classic. It’s often over-looked in favour of their debut album, but any album that contains a track like I Am The Black Gold Of The Sun is an unearthed gem that deserves some time on your record player.

MINNIE RIPERTON     LES FLEURS

Even before the demise of the Rotary Connection singer Minnie Riperton had already released a stone-cold classic solo album in 1970’s COME TO MY GARDEN. It’s a beautifully orchestrated affair, full of elegant arrangements and sensuous grooves that might best be described as chamber soul (should you want to). Riperton, of course, is best known for the glass shattering Lovin’ You, but Come To My Garden is by turns lush, intimate, unpredictable and almost criminally ignored at the time of its release.

RARE EARTH     GET READY

Lasting a full 21 minutes, Rare Earth’s cover of The Temptations Get Ready takes up all of the side 2 of their album GET READY, and in doing so more or less became the precursor to the 12” single. Despite being billed as an all-white blues rock band, the album was released on Motown in 1969, and features something of a 10 minute drum solo and a sinuous sax improv, neither of which, surprisingly, does the track any harm at all. Although Get Ready was used to close their live sets, there is some debate amongst critics as to whether this particular version of the track was actually recorded at a live performance at all, as the audience’s cheers sound a bit canned, and I read somewhere that the track is otherwise of further interest to music historians as the source of the riff to the Rolling Stones' track Bitch which appeared on their 1971 album Sticky Fingers, but I wouldn’t know about that sort of thing.  A heavily edited 3 minute version of the track was released as a single in 1970 and was a big hit for the band.

THE GRODECK WHIPPERJENNY     EVIDENCE FOR THE EXISTENCE OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

“…and we shall call the band The Grodeck Whipperjenny”, and had I been at that particular meeting, I’d have no doubt been, like: “Eh?”, but I wasn’t, not least because I would have been five at the time and growing up on a council estate in Essex and not Cincinnati, say, but, really, The Grodeck Whipperjenny? That being said, and despite the band name, they were, in fact, a rather tight jazz band who on this, their only album, display a fine aptitude for Funkadelic-style psychedelic soul and soulful prog rock, particularly on the trippy Evidence For The Existence Of The Unconscious, which is a fine name for a song. “Now, then, what shall we call the album?”, “How about, and I’m just throwing this out there, THE GRODECK WHIPPERJENNY?”

FUNKADELIC     WHAT IS SOUL?

Heavily lysergic funk vibes from George Clinton’s Funkadelic thang – possibly alien in nature, but, on the whole, largely harmless, apparently. Combining wah-wah guitars with crooning soul and mind-bending jams, Clinton takes the listener to the heart of the p-funk groove. "What is Soul?” he asks. “Soul is a joint rolled in toilet paper". So now you know.

THE TEMPTATIONS     TAKE A STROLL THRU YOUR MIND

By 1970, The Temptations, or at least Norman Whitfield, their lyricist, producer and composer, had almost entirely embraced psychedelia, much to the consternation of the group themselves. Stylistically, the group sound had abandoned the traditional Motown sound and were adopting hard rock guitars, Synthesiser sound-effects, multi-tracked drums,sampling, and stereo-shifting vocals into the mix to, it must be said (regardless of the groups own misgivings), outstanding effect. Take a Stroll Thru Your Mind is a totally tripped out eight minute ode to marijuana usage taken from the tellingly titled PSYCHEDELIC SHACK – My Girl it ain’t, but the band sure do sound like they be having sunshine on a rainy day.

CYMANDE     DOVE

Cymande, of course, is the calypso word for dove (he notes, authoritatively) so straight away you can see where the band are coming from. Cymande were (or possibly are, because a version of the band seems to have recently reformed) a British funk group (inasmuch that a group that includes members from Guyana, Jamaica and Saint Vincent can be said to be British) who played complex, invigorating head music in a deep funk stylee, influenced by calypso rhythms, jazz, African music and American soul. 

By this point I was beginning to wonder about the difference between funk and soul (no doubt you were, too) and after a little research I came to the following conclusion - Funk is inclusive; it takes on the blues, and jazz, and rock ‘n’ roll and soul  (and is not above stealin' a little latin, reggae and gospel when it needs to) and mixes them all up in an outward, loud, unbridled expression of freedom, possibly beginning with James Brown’s Outta Sight and then taken up by more or less anything released by Sly And The Family Stone, but that was just something I read somewhere. Soul, on the other hand, has more of an inward, quiet, passive desire for freedom with more focus on the lyrics. Psychedelic soul, therefore, seems to have occupied the unspoken transitory period between the two, soul and funk, that happened at some point between 1968 and 1972, more or less, but, admittedly, I’m no authority. What I am pretty sure about is that Dove is taken from their self-titled debut album, CYMANDE, released in 1972 and woefully over-looked at the time, although several of their tracks have since been sampled by the likes of De La Soul, The Fugees and DJ Kool Herc and Grandmaster Flash and has become something of a lost classic.

 BABY HUEY      A CHANGE IS GONNA COME

An absolutely spell-binding classic from Baby Huey (James Ramsey to his mum) whose only album, THE BABY HUEY STORY: THE LIVING LEGEND, released posthumously in 1971 following his death from a drug-related heart attack at the age of twenty-six in a Chicago motel room, is mostly comprised of a few tracks that had been already been recorded and a few instrumental tracks gathered up by his manager and Curtis Mayfield. Sounds unpromising, I know, but his cover of Sam Cooke’s A Change Is Gonna Come – on which Huey recalls his introduction to the demon weed amongst other things - is a masterpiece that manages to be both bonkers and jaw-droppingly epic at the same; possibly the greatest cover version of all time.

BOOTSY’S RUBBER BAND     MUNCHIES FOR YOUR LOVE

 Mind-blowingly funky grooves from Bootsy Collins, who’s Munchies For Your Love pretty much steals the show in terms of tripped-out lysergic starchild vibes. Produced by Collins and George Clinton, with most of the Parliament line-up on board, Bootsy’s 1977 album AAH…THE NAME IS BOOTSY, BABY is a sublime listen; stone-cold expansiveness raised to the level of p-funk cosmic consciousness. Absolutely essential.

ISAAC HAYES     IKE’S MOOD

I’ve cheated here – Ike’s Mood, from Hayes’ 1971 release …TO BE CONTINUED, segues beautifully into the album’s highlight, a gorgeous cover of the Righteous Brothers’ You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’ which, whilst being the apex of the album and absolutely deserving of your time, isn’t, in the context of the show, in any way psychedelic, so I allow the track to drift off into the conclusion of Richard Pryor’s riff on acid. What you do get instead is a quintessential Hayes track with upfront horns, piano and soulful orchestration that definitely has some goings on going on. This, presumably was long before his scientology days, because I understand that they can’t be doing with goings on at all.

THE SUPREMES     BRIDGE OVER TROUBLED WATER

I’ve never been a fan of Simon and Garfunkel’s Bridge Over Troubled Water – it always sounded a bit too bombastic and full of its own self-importance for my delicate tastes – but, quite simply, this version by The Supremes sounds as if it was arranged and produced by the Spacemen 3 with some of Spiritualized’s gospel inflections thrown in for good measure. NEW WAYS BUT LOVE STAYS was one of three albums the Supremes released in 1970 following the departure of superstar diva Ms Ross, an unprecedented response that saw them move on from the Holland-Dozier-Holland song book into experimental, uncharted waters. Also on the album is perhaps one of their greatest releases, Stoned Love, not to mention one of the most far-out covers of The Beatle’s Come Together I’ve ever heard, which may well make it on to next week’s show. However, I thought this show needed to finish on a note, bombastic or otherwise, so here it is, complete with sound effects, foghorn blasts, a crash of thunder, great reverbed guitar licks and a cathartic third verse that is very nearly transcendent. Epic, but in a good way.

Facebook