MIND DE-CODER 35

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"I hear nothing myself’, he said, “but the wind playing in the reeds and rushes and osiers."

JULEE CRUISE      UP IN FLAMES

Back when Twin Peaks was first on, Julee Cruise was the girl for me. She was the coolest girl around; she sang numbed out songs about broken promises, crushed relationships and heartache in a way that made loneliness seem almost narcotic. She looked great too. Words by David Lynch and music by Angelo Badalamenti, this track is from the album THE VOICE OF LOVE, released in 1993. This particular track is from a live performance from Lynch and Badalamenti's INDUSTRIAL SYMPHONY #1 in which she starred as The Dream Of The Heartbroken Woman. It still gives me shivers.

BUFFALO SPRINGFIELD      EXPECTING TO FLY

I've never really been a big fan of Buffalo Springfield, but this particular Neal Young written track, taken from 1967's BUFFALO SPRINGFIELD AGAIN, is as light as a feather and never fails to enchant - enchant, in this sense, taken from original sense of being entranced, bewitched and spell-bound by the faeries. It really does have that sense of fascinated delight about it .(It was arranged for orchestration by Jack Nietzche, trivia fans).

LEVITATION      NADINE

The first thing that you notice about this opening track from their 1991 debut COPPELIA EP is how short it is, given everyone was expecting 'Topographic Oceans'. The sound is one of syrupy vocals spiralling around this condensed wash of noise that cascades to a sudden stop and leaves you simply needing more...sugar oceans, indeed.

C.C.C.      MAN ALIVE

This evening's only mash-up, and very clever. C.C.C.'s speciality is to mix classic 60's tracks together. In this track he combines The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Spencer Davis Group, Pink Floyd and Mick Jagger's one outstanding solo track Memo To Turner (from the soundtrack to Performance) to mesmerising effect. You can find it here along with a whole bunch of excellent mash-ups. CCC is the creator of REVOLVED and CRACKED PEPPER, two Beatles Mash-up albums also available at the same site.

VELVET UNDERGROUND      LADY GODIVA'S OPERATION

First time I heard this track it blew me away. When Lou Reed's voice breaks in over John Cale's blank vocals on this Burroughsian rendition of the Lady Godiva tale I very nearly leapt out of my skin. It’s taken from 1967's WHITE LIGHT/WHITE HEAT, of course, one of my favourite albums of all time. I'd never heard a record like it before, and I haven't heard anything like it since. I've never re-bought The Velvet Underground on CD, preferring to stick with the original vinyl recordings After all, if you take away the background noise in a VU recording, you've taken away half the song. I believe the studio was actually being built around them as this album was being recorded. Mo Tucker sounds like she's playing telephone directories - which I think she was.

TRAFFIC     PAPER SUN

The debut single from Steve Winwood’s Traffic, ensconced in their Berkshire cottage and otherwise away with the daisies. It was released as a taster for their forthcoming album MR FANTASY which followed in 1967 (although not actually included on the album).

THE SMALL FACES     ITCHYCOO PARK

Well, I had to play this at some point, in many ways the definitive English psychedelic pop record of the 60’s – whimsical, playful and a touch of the pastoral about it. Released in 1967, it was one of the first pop records to use flanging, which was soon to become a staple amongst the psychedelic FX repertoire.

DONOVAN       HURDY GURDY MAN

The sound of this song has a lysergic quality about it that I suspect may have been created by the use of the tambura, but which, in any case, has a harder, rockier sound than Donovan’s previous work, employing the use of distorted guitars which may, or may not, have been provided by Jimmy Page, although from what I can work out, it was a long time ago (1968) and in the true spirit of the times, no one can quite remember who was playing what or even if they were there at all.

The lyrics recount the tale of a nameless narrator being visited in his dreams by the eponymous Hurdy Gurdy Man and his close associate, the Roly Poly Man. Both men come "singing songs of love”. Despite being very much of its time, only Donovan was able get away with this kind of thing.

THE LEMON PIPERS      GREEN TAMBOURINE

With Green Tambourine, The Lemon Pipers scored themselves the very first bubble gum pop record to hit the top of the charts in America, but as is often the case in these things, the band hated it, thinking it unrepresentative of their sound. In fairness, their only album, GREEN TAMBOURINE, released 1968, had a heavier, rockier sound with a few odd country-ish moments thrown in than the hits they were compelled to knock out for their label, but rather than make the album compellingly eclectic, it rather made for a more difficult listen. Best all round if they’d just stuck with the bubblegum hits, in my opinion.

BEYOND THE WIZARDS SLEEVE     MIDAS REVERSED

The Hollies, of course, whose 1967 single King Midas In Reverse is given the remix treatment by Beyond The Wizards Sleeve on their album BIRTH,  released in 2005 – this is the album on which they thanked LSD, the 11 dimensions and various Gods and denounced all wars, oppression and conflict. The world has been warned.

THE JIMI HENDRIX EXPERIENCE     VOODOO CHILD (SLIGHT RETURN)

The closing track on ELECTRIC LADYLAND, of course (released 1967), and a piece that’s generally regarded as the greatest piece of electric guitar work ever recorded and a beacon of humanity – if you listen to it on acid it will literally blow your mind.

THE BEACH BOYS     GOOD VIBRATIONS

Hendrix was rather dismissive of The Beach Boys and on one famous occasion referred to them as little more than a psychedelic barber shop quartet, which doesn’t actually sound like the worse thing in the world; but I think even he would have be hard put to deny that Brian Wilson’s pocket symphony, released in 1966, is one of the single greatest recordings of all time. Actually, he probably wouldn't have, but that shouldn’t detract from the fact that there is nothing but perfection here.

THE DOORS     BREAK ON THROUGH (TO THE OTHER SIDE)

Surprising as it may seem now, The Doors debut single, released in 1967 to coincide with their album, hardly dented the charts but today remains pretty much their signature tune on which Morrison, on something of a Blake-ian trip, makes clear the band’s entire manifesto – sex, poetic musings, darkness, vulnerability and exploring the inner landscape whilst high on drugs.

THE BYRDS      8 MILES HIGH

I listened to this once under agreeable circumstances and the experience literally thrilled me. I never knew how much was going on it, how important the noise of it was. It's one of the greatest records ever made, and taken from their 1966 release FIFTH DIMENSION, the last to feature Gene Clark in the line-up. This was, without doubt, his finest hour. I'm a big fan of their next album, 'The Notorious Byrd Brothers', but I think this was The Byrds at their very best.

PINK FLOYD      SEE EMILY PLAY

And then we come to quite simply my favourite record from the sixties, Pink Floyd's See Emily Play, released in 1967, when England was swinging liked a pendulum do. Playful, childlike, slightly taunting, sonically amazing - it's the perfect pop song, and trippy as anything. Syd Barrett’s finest moment. It never fails to put a smile on my face.

After that I thought a play a section from one of those helpful educational films warning against the dangers of mixing LSD with hotdogs. The film is a trip in itself. You can watch it here. All I can say is, it's never happened to me.

THE BEATLES      IT'S ALL TOO MUCH

By no means The Beatles' greatest song (George Harrison wrote it, for a start, but it does have that brilliant intro, though), but a very good example as to why I prefer English psychedelic music over the American approach. American psychedelic music is notably rock-based, and at its very best is pretty far-out, transformational, and usually has something to do with losing yourself in some desert and riding a wild snake, or something. English psychedelia, on the other hand, is usually pop-based, has a cosy, traditional Victorian nursery-rhyme feel to it and the limits to personal transformation can be summed up in Harrison's lines: "Show me I'm everywhere, and get me home for tea", a lyric I've always found enormously comforting. Although recorded in 1967 in the midst of their post-Pepper comedown, you can find It's All Too Much on THE YELLOW SUBMARINE soundtrack, released in 1969.

LISTEN WITH SARAH      BLUE PARSLEY

Avant-garde, experimental folk music from Sarah Nelson, aka Listen With Sarah. This particular track can be found on the Folk Off: New Folk And Psychedelia compilation album, released in 2006, but can also be found on THE BLUE PARSLEY/JULY EP released in 2004. She specialises in cut 'n' paste, dada-esque sound collages and was discovered by John Peel about a week before he died.

RIDE      ROLLING THUNDER

A lovely tune, this, taken from their third album CARNIVAL OF LIGHT, released in 1994, after they'd left the shoe-gazing scene behind decided to get all authentic. It's a sweet album, but I think the in-fighting had begun by now and they were not much longer for this world. It was more or less at this time that Oasis burst onto the scene with 'Definitely Maybe'. Singer/guitarist Andy Bell was heard to opine that he wished his band sounded like Oasis. A few years later he joined them - which just goes to show that you should be careful what you wish for.

JAPANESE TEMPLE BELL      ISEHARA

Sometimes you just need to give your mind a little space in which to drift away. This does the job perfectly. Taken from the album JAPANESE TEMPLE BELLS 8-17th CENTURY (every home should have one), this particular bell can be heard at Isehara, near Yokohama, apparently.

VLADIMIR COSMA      PROMENADE SENTIMENTALE

Taken from the soundtrack to the defiantly stylish 1982 French art-house film debut DIVA by director Jean-Jacques Beineix, who went on to make the classic Betty Blue (still my favourite film ever). Exquisitely shot, the film is well served by this beautiful piano piece by Vladimir Cosma. The film absolutely haunted me the first time I saw it and I spent months searching the record shops of London until I was able to track down a copy of the soundtrack in a little back street off Covent Garden. This was in the days before the internet, of course, and if you really wanted to find an obscure French soundtrack you had to be prepared to give up your weekends for the hunt. I've never regretted the time it took, because Promenade Sentimentale is one of the most beautiful pieces of music you will ever hear, and I seem to have owned a copy of it for over 30 years. Cool.

JULIAN COPE      METRANIL VAVIN

Metranil Vavin was a fictional Russian emigré living in Paris in the 1970's who wrote soggily sentimental poems about his mother, who was either dead or possibly stayed behind in Russia; I understand it was never made entirely clear. None of this has anything to do with this track, which for me always sparkles like a jewel in the Julian Cope treasure chest of songs. You can find it on WORLD SHUT YOUR MOUTH, his debut solo LP which he released in 1984 and which remains my favourite of the 50 or so albums I seem to own by him. In the sleeve notes, he writes: 'Metranil Vavin was a good poet', but I always thought he was singing about me.

MICHAEL HORDERN      PIPER AT THE GATES OF DAWN

The great English actor Michael Hordern reading from The Wind In The Willows, one of my favourite books. It typifies the kind of Englishness that English psychedelic pop of the 60's aspired to, so it's only fitting that I play my favourite chapter here - the magical, haunting Piper At The Gates Of Dawn (needless to say it made something of an impression on Syd Barrett, too). Think of it as a bed-time treat. It will take you somewhere far away.

SCHUBERT      TRIO IN E FLAT OP.100

I know nothing about classical music - I don't even know what 'Op.100' means - but I do know that I like this; that it fit the mood of comfortable reverie I was trying to create, and that you can find this particular recording on the soundtrack to Tony Scott's THE HUNGER, that I played a little something from last week. Seems to me that once the psychedelic bubble burst a lot of bands were burnt out and were looking for something simple and authentic to return to. A lot of bands found it in American roots music, others looked to the blues. I can't really be doing with either - but having enjoyed a bit of Schubert under engaging conditions, say, I don't think that you can get very much more authentic than this. Bach's pretty good, too. (And I think we can safely leave The Band at The Big Pink).

THE BEATLES      TOMORROW NEVER KNOWS

Possibly The Beatles' finest moment, certainly one of the greatest psychedelic records ever made, if not the greatest - the exhilarating Tomorrow Never Knows. "I want the sound of a thousand Tibetan monks chanting..." said John, and he got it. From 1966's REVOLVER, of course, when Lennon sings: 'Turn off your mind, relax and float downstream', it sounds like a call to arms...