MIND DE-CODER 31

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MIND DE-CODER 31

"I was wide awake...in a dream"

SYD MATTERS     AUTOMATIC

Syd Matters, otherwise known as French musician Jonathon Morali, released the debut album, A WHISPER AND A SIGH, from which this track is taken, in 2002. On it he creates elegiac, finger picked folk over etherial electronic rhythms that place him somewhere between Nick Drake and Radiohead. It provides the perfect introduction to this evening's show, an altogether more gentle soundtrack to come down to.

THE PRETTY THINGS     BRACELETS OF FINGERS

The Pretty Things' album SF SORROW, recorded in 1967, has the dubious distinction of being considered the world's first 'Rock Opera', pre-dating The Beatles and The Small Faces by a year. In it, we follow the story of Sebastian F. Sorrow, from birth, through love, war, tragedy, madness and the disillusionment of old age. (It's a comedy). It's widely regarded as something of a psychedelic classic, and was recorded in the same EMI studios that Pink Floyd and The Beatles were using to create their own psychedelic classics, PIPER AT THE GATES OF DAWN and SGT. PEPPERS. For one reason or another it failed to create the same impact as either of those two albums, and became one of the great lost albums of the sixties, which is where I found it. Bracelets Of Fingers seems to be about our hero's job at The Misery Factory. Do you know, I think its narrative may have had something to do with that whole business concerning its popularity.

PAUL WELLER     111

A bit of electronic noodling from Weller’s 2008 release, 22 DREAMS, the album that saw his renaissance from trad-dad rockist to an artist suddenly alive to all music’s possibilities; embracing electronica, krautrock, classical, folk and psychedelia in a late career arc that’s seen him through two albums since then, each a giddy musical call to arms. 111 is a chaotic mix of Moog, mellotron and free-jazz experimentation that takes the listener to a lovely little place and drops them off right here…

JEFFERSON AIRPLANE     A SMALL PACKAGE OF VALUE WILL COME TO YOU, SHORTLY

For Many, it's SURREALISTIC PILLOW, for others, it's AFTER BATHING AT BAXTERS. I'm an  BAXTERS man, myself. Granted SURREALISTIC PILLOW has got Somebody To Love and White Rabbit on it, as well as the lovely acoustic ballad Comin' Back To Me, but AFTER BATHING AT BAXTERS, recorded and released in 1967, the same year as SURREALISTIC PILLOW, is literally a trip. Released at the height of the west coast hippy vibe, this is an album soaked in LSD use, offering up a unique, experimental sound of the sixties waiting to implode; but for now, everyone is clearly having a whale of a time as is in evidence on this particular track. There'll be a better one later on in the show.

WOLF PEOPLE     SEASONS PT. 1

The opening track from Wolf People’s debut album, TIDINGS, released 2010, in which they pretty lay out the blue print for the rest of their album – a messed-up bluesy guitar riff of the Steppenwolf variety, followed by an excursion into Faust-like noodlings – and very fine it is too. For their second album, STEEPLE, released later that same year, they chose to go with the Steppenwolf riffs, but I’m hoping for their third album they might explore their more expansive ideas (but that might just be me).

CRANIUM PIE     THIS WAS NOW - RELEASE THE BIRDS

The opening track from Cranium Pie’s debut album, MECHANISMS PT. 1, released 2011, in which they pretty much lay out the blue-print for the rest of their album – a kind of hypnotic ethereal flair coupled with krautrock leanings and a touch of OBSCURED BY CLOUDS-period Pink Floyd. Music from the 11th-dimension – marvellous. It's almost certainly a concept album about lobsters.

COLLEEN     THE GOLDEN MORNING BREAKS

Colleen creates simple, fragile and instrumental tunes of child-like, folk-speckled psychedelic bliss (in a fuzzy-hearted, etherial sort of way, that you may or may not find captivating). THE GOLDEN MORNING BREAKS, released in 2005 and from which this track is taken, spins music as delicate as an early-morning dew-kissed web, and is as diaphanous and lovely. 

BRUNNEN     COVER ME

Dutch musician, the marvellously named Freek Kinkelaar, has enjoyed a long career that didn’t reach me at all, until he released THE BEE KEEPER’S DREAM in 2006 that compiled 13 recordings from the 13 years he’s recorded under that particular moniker. On the whole it’s an understated affair with sparse arrangements that create a subdued atmosphere perfect for rainy Suday mornings - Cover Me enjoys a low-key psychedelic chamber arrangement that recalls prime Scott Walker but with electronic flourishes burbling around the edges, but the whole album is never less than lovely. 

ISOBEL CAMPBELL      HORI HORO

Isobel Campbell, of course, used to be in Belle And Sebastian, where she was often accused of adding a certain twee-ness to the band's proceedings. She put paid to that kind of criticism with her work with gravel-voiced bluesman Mark Lanegan and THE BALLAD OF THE BROKEN SEAS, which I never really cared for, myself, because I really can't be doing with gravelly-voices bluesmen at all. On this album, however, MILK WHITE SHEETS, released in 2006, Campbell's voice is almost weightless in its delicacy, which puts me in mind of Vashti Bunyan’s JUST ANOTHER DIAMOND DAY, although Campbell herself reckons she owes more to Shirley Collins who covered the track on her album Folk Roots, New Routes with Davy Graham in 1964. I have it on (fairly good) authority that the words Hori Horo are used by Scots to indicate sorrow.

DELIBES      THE FLOWER SONG

DELIBES      THE FLOWER DUET

From the opera Lakmé, by Léo Delibes, of course, first performed in 1883 and, until recently at least, very popular amongst advertisers, which kind of put me off it for a while. I first heard it in the film THE HUNGER, Tony Scott's seductive 1983 vampire movie, featuring David Bowie and that legendary erotic scene between Catherine Deneuve and Susan Sarandon for which it served as a very erotique accompaniment. Despite the fact you can hear it everywhere these days, from shopping malls to elevators, to British Airways adverts, to cellphone ringtones, The Flower Duet (or Sous le dôme épais, to give it its proper title) still remains one of the sexiest, most exotic and, indeed, exotique (given the vogue back then for musical pieces capturing the ambience of the orient) pieces of music you are ever likely to hear. It certainly had an effect on me, I can tell you. I don't know who is responsible for this particularly ravishing recording - but you can find it on THE HUNGER soundtrack. 

ERIK SATIE      GYMNOPÈDIES #2 

I’m obviously on some kind of French expressionistic trip so here’s Satie’s Gymnopèdies #2, first performed in 1888 as part of the Gymnopèdies series, which are generally considered an important influence on modern ambient music. It's the least well known of the series, but contains within its mild dissonance a hypnotic like quality that can lead to an almost out of body experience, if listened to properly. Which is perfect because it allows the next track to arrive almost unnoticed...

SPACEMEN 3      ECSTASY SYMPHONY/TRANSPARENT RADIATION (FLASHBACK) 

The numbed-out, narcotic bliss from Spacemen 3's key recording, THE TRANSPARENT RADIATION EP, released in 1987 in which they take the original recording by The Red Krayola to some place so far out that you may not get back again. This record blew my mind the first time I heard it, and even now I still get a shiver when I hear vocalist Sonic Boom utter, "I was wide awake in a dream..." only to follow it some 7 minutes later with the immortal, "You know? It sounds like...ecstasy".  Yes, yes it does.

JULY      HELLO WHO'S THERE?

And back to earth with a bang. Returning to England in 1968 from a stint in Spain and just in time to catch the tail end of the psychedelic craze, The Tomcats hastily renamed themselves July and got out a quick album, called JULY, which has since become a much sought after psychedelic artefact. They were never as good as Pink Floyd, say, but the album does hold two genuinely weird psychedelic classics - Dandelion Seeds and My Clown. It also has this track, Hello Who's There, a kind of chirpy cockney knees up in Small Faces stylee which I included because it makes me laugh, of course. Mind you, I edited about three verses out of it because it does get a bit much, and then I had it disappear into a bit of Faust I had left over from last week.

JEFFERSON AIRPLANE      WATCH HER RIDE

The second single that was released from AFTER BATHING AT BAXTERS and one on which Grace Slick's vocal just soars in a way that always makes me soar too.

I have it disappear into a rather fine radio ad they seem to have made for Levi Jeans round about the same time as the album release in 1967; the thing is, is it possible for a counter-cultural group to make a commercial, no matter how ironic or trippy, without shredding what remains of their artistic dignity? However, I happen to own a collection of psychedelic promos and radio spots from the sixties (every home should own one) and they all appear to be at it, so who am I to judge? And it is a very good promo, though.

MY BLOODY VALENTINE      SWALLOW

Having played a track from MBV last week, I thought I’d include a track from the TREMOLO EP, released in 1991 as an accompaniment for the LOVELESS LP, to remind everyone what all the fuss was about in the first place. It's a lovely tune, for a start, a strange collage of faintly Middle Eastern noise over which vocalist Bilinda Butcher's voice floats like a giddy swoon. It still gives me goosebumps.

BOO RADLEYS     SPUN AROUND

And so to the Boo Radleys, rather ungenerously referred to as the My Bloody Valentine that Creation Records could afford, who, in 1993 took everyone by surprise with their album, the appropriately titled GIANT STEPS, a record of unbridled kaleidoscopic psychedelia taking in brass, dub, psych-pop, white noise, jazzy segues (it was named after John Coltrane’s album), Wilson-esque harmonies and soaring pop blasts that blew everything else away. Trying to seperate one track from the melange of sound was always going to be difficult as the album works best when experienced in one sitting, but Spun Around gives a small indication of how far out the Boo Radleys were at this point. Sadly they could never be this good again – nobody could ever be this good again.

FAUST     CHÈRE CHAMBRE

The closing track from Mind De-Coder favourite THE FAUST TAPES (1973), the almost unbearably lovely Chère Chambre, sung by Jean-Hervé Péron  that concludes an album of otherwise arch avant garde experimentation with something that’s simply magical.

JOHN MARTYN     BLACK MAN AT YOUR SHOULDER (ALTERNATE TAKE #2)

John Martyn was a mercurial figure to say the least but capable of flights of genius. Primarily know as a folk singer, this previously unreleased version of Black Man At Your Shoulder, an out-take from his classic ONE WORLD album, released in 1977, shows he was open to, and possibly a conduit for, all forms as he plays around with dub production techniques and free-jazz odysseys. You can find this track on the recently released 18-disc  box set celebrating his 20 years with Island Records, the aptly named THE ISLAND YEARS BOX SET. Fans will find much to enjoy.  

THE BEATLES      REVOLUTION 20 (TAKE  2)

In the meantime, The Beatles were working on their own avant garde piece, the semi-legendary Revolution 20 (Take 2), that appeared on the internet for about 5 minutes a few years ago before getting taken down by the powers of darkness. Fortunately, I just happened to be on line at the time. So here you are, a genuine curio for your listening pleasure...

PAUL WELLER      NIGHT FLIGHT

From 22 DREAMS, again; Paul Weller with more acid-folk charm. And that would be Terrence McKenna positing the theory that you and I might actually be the centre of the mandala. Or something.

And that was Mind De-Coder 31

I thank you.