MIND DE-CODER 25

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MIND DE-CODER 33

 “You are the banana on the floor”

SPACEMEN 3      COME DOWN SOFTLY TO MY SOUL

This mesmerising track offers a gentle introduction to tonight's show. This is taken from the band’s third album, PLAYING WITH FIRE, released in 1988, an album that got me through my bed-sit days (along with The Smiths, obviously). By turns gentle, numbed-out and kind, the album also offers up some fairly comprehensive wig-outs too, just the sort of thing to help me through those times when it all seemed a bit too much for a boy to take.

THE ROLLING STONES      SHE'S A RAINBOW

I first heard this song under rather enhanced circumstances wandering around Chislehurst caves in Kent (UK) at a Magical Mystery Trip 'happening' put together by a psychedelic club I used to go to in the early 80's called Alice In Wonderland. The plinky-plonky harpsichord/piano bit in the middle picked me up and took me somewhere very colourful and far away. It occurred to me the other day that I've spent a lot of the intervening time since then trying to get back there. She's A Rainbow, of course, is taken from THEIR SATANIC MAJESTIES REQUEST, released in 1967 as a response to The Beatles' Sgt. Peppers album, and all recent re-evaluations aside, it's still a largely divisive album with a handful of tracks within its grooves which are as good as anything the Stones have ever produced (and on all those drugs too - I can barely put the kettke on safely under similar circumstances), but it does also contain some wilfully affected nonsense. I think She's A Rainbow is quite super.

TIMOTHY LEARY      THE TURN ON/THE TUNE IN

Two tracks taken from one of the trippiest albums I own, and that's saying something. On TURN ON, TUNE IN, DROP OUT, released in 1967, acid guru Leary offers a guided meditation through a trip over some pretty far-out psychedelic rock that, at some points, takes you so far into your head, the idea of ever coming back somehow escapes you. I have absolutely lost myself in this album. Originally recorded to accompany a documentary of the same name in which Leary guides fellow researcher, writer and psychologist Ralph Metzner through a trip, it’s an essential psychedelic experience, but kind of scary too, especially if your name actually is Ralph.

THE BEATLES     FLYING

Originally entitled Arial Tour Instrumental, Flying was recorded as a segment for THE MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR in 1967 and is pleasant little filler with some Indian influenced vibes and some beautiful varispeed Mellotron by Lennon, with added vocals lifted directly from the film.

VERVE      WHERE THE GEESE GO

A lovely song, released in the days before Verve records got to hear about them and forced a definitive article upon them, taken from their little known album NO COME DOWN, a collection of B-sides and acoustic versions of their songs which was released in 1994 and was probably only available in Japan, or something.

LEVITATION      SMILE

Prog-rock bliss, brought to you by dedicated acid-head Terry Bickers, Levitation's debut release THE COPPELIA EP, from 1990, was a statement of intent that the band were never quite able to live up to. Smile remains as the best example of what they were capable of and is, in all senses of the word, an epic. A plaintive vocal over a gently strummed guitar heralds a beautiful, mid paced, proggy riff that is itself shadowed by crystalline chimes of guitar. The sound builds with vocal and guitar harmonies and gorgeous themes and reprises of the main melodies. Then moments of quiet, interspersed with gentle guitar echoes, until the flailatron drums bring the whole thing to a lush, pompous and grandiose climax....then again, drifting back to quiet...peace, childlike keys and Levitation have left your head. Love it still!

Possibly describes an acid trip. I played this record all the time when it came out.

TIM BUCKLEY      HALLUCINATIONS

Taken from his live album, 1968's DREAM LETTER, this song is elegant, otherworldly and gorgeous. When I first heard this track on a tape cassette a friend had made me, I had no idea it was a live performance. I was so entranced that when the spellbound audience erupted into applause at the end of the track I leapt out of my seat in surprise, wondering how six hundred people could possibly have sneaked into my room behind me while my mind was elsewhere.

FUTURO     BREATH WITH ME TILL DAWN

The only mash-up on tonight's show, but what a sublimely beautiful piece of music it is. Judie Tzuke's 1979 hit Stay With Me Till Dawn mashed into Pink Floyd's Breathe, this song is full of late night yearning and as sexy as hell. Created in 2009 by Steve Lima, you can find it on Futuro's website here.

CORNELIUS      SENSUOUS

Taken from the third full length album by Cornelius, this is the title track from 2007's SENSUOUS, an ambient little guitar melody that never goes anywhere much but which holds you in a gentle trance before we come to...

PENTANGLE      LIGHT FLIGHT

Possibly my favourite track on tonight's show and my favourite song by Pentangle, the sublime Light Flight, taken from my favourite album by the band, 1969's BASKET OF LIGHT. This is possibly the most hummable song I know, vocalist Jacqui McShee's spine-tingling voice soars over Bert Jansch's and John Renbourne's jazzy guitar playing to create a song that just wraps you up in it's own sense of wonder. Apparently this song was a huge hit in New Zealand so you might even find it in your parent's record collection. One for the flower children.

THE MONKEES      SWAMI WITH STRINGS

Taken from the soundtrack to the film HEAD, in which the Monkees deconstruct their teen-pop image in a lysergic mobius-strip of a movie that ultimately means nothing, but in doing so kind of means everything. The album itself, released in 1968, only has six songs, the rest of it is made up of sound collages taken from the movie and edited together by Jack Nicholson of all people. It's one of the trippiest albums I own ( I know I've said that before, but I really do mean it every time I say so) and one of the trippiest films I have in my DVD collection, too. Bizarrely, nobody I know shows the remotest interest in either of them. Weird.

PRIMAL SCREAM     CRYSTAL CRESCENT

This early version of Primal Scream often used to receive quite the critical kicking from the music press – I remember their first album was compared to Sooty and Sweep playing at being Love – but this single, release in 1986, is a joyful explosion of pop energy and thrills that never fails to put a smile on my face whenever I hear it.

13th FLOOR ELEVATORS     ROLLER COASTER

The most notable thing about the legendary 13th Floor Elevators, of course, isn’t whether they were the first band to use the term ‘psychedelic’ to describe their music (I understand The Blue Magoos and The Holy Modal Rounders have an opinion about that) but their psychedelic use of the electric jug to define their sound; I never got the hang of it. Roller Coaster is taken from their debut album, THE PSYCHEDELIC SOUND OF THE 13TH FLOOR ELEVATORS, released in 1966, featuring sleeve notes by lyricist and electric jug player Tommy Hall, in which he argues chemical agents, such as your LSD, create a gateway to higher, 'non-Aristotelian' states of consciousness'. I can’t argue with that, I’ve just never considered the electric jug as contributing to that effect – not that I want to go on about it too much.  At Hall’s urging the band played most of their live shows and recorded their albums while under the influence of LSD, and built their lifestyle and music around the psychedelic experience. Intellectual and esoteric influences also helped shape their work, which shows traces of Gurdjieff, the General Semantics of Alfred Korzybski, the psychedelic philosophy of Timothy Leary, and Tantric meditation. The album, their two subsequent releases, and the band’s philosophy, went on to inform the likes of Julian Cope, Spacemen 3 and Primal Scream – I can’t say enough good things about them.

IVOR CUTLER     A RED FLOWER

A surreal recitation told in Cutler’s trademark dolorous tone, taken from his debut album proper WHO TORE YOUR TROUSERS?, released in 1961. The weirdest thing, though, is the photo on the front cover, a positively youthful looking Ivor aged 28, as opposed to the wizened version that I’ve grown used to over the years.  

MOON WIRING CLUB     CREEP IN OUR EARS

More inspired hauntological going’s on from The Moon Wiring Club – this eerie little track taken from the 2009 release STRIPED PAINT FOR THE LAST POST.

BILL HOLT     PROGRAM 11

DREAMIES, by Bill Holt, is one of the great lost albums of the 1970’s. Legend has it that, inspired by The Beatles’ Revolution 9, Holt, in his late 20’s, quit his comfortable but uninspiring job, holed himself up with a Moog Sonic 6 and guitar and set out to realize his dream of becoming a musician. The result was his 1973 album Dreamies, a groundbreaking album created from news sound bites and found sound, radio and television broadcasts, as well as samples taken from recordings by The Beatles, arranged in an expansive collage, layered with his strumming acoustic guitar and experimental electronic sounds that consisted of just two long tracks, called Program 10 and Program 11, stretched out over either side of the record. Despite being one of the earliest examples of sampling in popular music, it was very much an album of its times,  reflecting the tumultuous times of the 60’s in America, the Vietnam War, the youth culture revolution and other current events. Beyond The Wizards Sleeve, who always have an eye for the obscure, edited a section from Program 10 for their track Sunday Morning Sun-g which appears on their George album, which I played on last week’s show. I play 15 minutes or so from Program 11 for your listening pleasure, a tripped out mix that throbs with the pleasure of its own existence. As is often the case with your visionaries, the album failed to find an audience and Holt returned to his day job, although I read recently that, inspired by events in a post 9/11 America, he’s returned to the studio and recorded a further Program 13 and, indeed, Program 14. 

THE MOON WIRING CLUB     RAFFLING STREET

Ornate, dreamlike glamour from LEPORINE PLEASURE GARDENS, released 2015.

MOONSHAKE     COMING

I remember this track used to have me dancing around my bedsit at two in the morning, absolutely swept away by its spikey rhythms, shimmering loops and yearning atmosphere. The band grew out of the ashes of C86 group The Wolfhounds, who, like many of those acts, found that particular definition to be something of a creative cul-de-sac. For their debut EP, FIRST, released in 1991, Moonshake incorporated a mix of electronica, dub, krautrock and sonic experimentation into their sound that displayed more creativity than most groups are able to muster over a lifetime. Sadly, no one was listening and they remain little more than a footnote to the early 90s shoegazer scene.

BLUR     SHE’S SO HIGH

Unlike Blur, say. I must have seen them four or five times – in their early psychedelic phase, their gor blimey, missus Modern Life Is Rubbish phase, and their post-Pavement all grown up phase (I seem to have missed out on the Britpop phase), but, as a live affair, I absolutely loved their psychedelic phase. I think I actually swooned first time I heard this, released as their debut single in 1990.

STERLING ROSWELL     INTERPLANETARY SPACELINER

I don’t think anyone expected the former drummer of Spacemen 3 to suddenly up and decide to release an album, but that’s exactly what Sterling Roswell did in 2014, calling it THE CALL OF THE COSMOS. It is, by turns, either a beautifully languid poppy affair, or a full on experimental sonic assault – it works best, however, when it manages to do both at the same time. Interplanetary Spaceliner is the other worldly opening track.

SOFT HEARTED SCIENTISTS     CARNIVAL SONG

 An agreeably dreamy track from THE SLOW CYCLONE, released in 2014 and a  double album comprising ‘proper’ pop songs, weird interludes, science fiction love songs, mantras, cosmic country songs, 12 string guitar instrumentals, heartbroken robot songs, and ‘Leonard Cohen in 1968’ songs of mortality. I love it, as you can imagine.

THE MARTHAS AND ARTHURS     BARBEROSOPHY

A Capella oddness from the Martha And Arthurs, whose debut album THE HIT WORLD OF…MARTHAS AND ARTHURS, released in 2012, otherwise owes more to the Mamas and the Papas, all pastoral pop folk and gorgeous layered harmonies.

BEAULIEU PORCH     IS

Proper psychedelic goodness from Simon Berry, who releases under the name of Beaulieu Porch. This track is taken from a compilation of his first two albums, released by the Active Listener in 2014, each track a psych-pop miniature featuring sky-wide arrangements full of baroque orchestration and Walrus-like chants and choruses that inhabit a world of pastoral loveliness.

THE BEATLES     JULIA (OUT-TAKE)

The ghostly sound of John Lennon in an early take of THE WHITE ALBUM's Julia. Simple, affecting and, when his spoken voice comes in at the end, quite electrifying. You can find this on ANTHOLOGY 3, released in 1996.

And that was Mind De-Coder 25. I thank you.