MIND DE-CODER 56
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“Objects and their functions no
longer had any significance. All I perceived was perception itself…and since
the appearance of things was no longer definitive but limitless, this
paradisiacal awareness freed me from the reality external to myself”.
Federico Fellini
KEMPER NORTON ALL THROUGH THE NIGHT
Kemper Norton has what
you might call an idiosyncratic approach to making albums that takes
traditional instrumentation and places it within dreamlike landscapes of sound,
often quite literally. All Through The Night is taken from his second album,
LOOR, released last year, an album psycho-geographically located between
Cornwall (loor is Cornish for moon) and Sussex, providing something of
the resonance of these two coastal counties in both dream and myth. The music
shares elements of a hauntological dissonance and pagan folk qualities which
uses field recording and digital instruments to create something both personal
and ephemeral. All Through The Night is a cover of an 18th
century Welsh folk song which keen-eared listeners
may recognize from the schmaltzy Christmas version recorded by Olivier Newton
John and Michael MacDonald of the Doobie Brothers in 2007, who clearly must
have been on something slightly stronger than a doobie to have allowed himself
to be talked into partaking of that particular Christmas turkey.
WYRDSTONE MEDITATION ON LOST GARDENS
Wyrdstone is a psychedelic, experimental
guitar project created by East Sussex resident Clive Murrell, a man clearly at
home to the likes of The Incredible String Band, Anne Briggs, Bibio, Espers,
Voice Of The Seven Woods, Linda Perhacs, Boards Of Canada, Bert Jansch, Claude
Vasori, BBC Radio 4, Thomas Charles Lethbridge, The Trumptonshire Chronicles
and other noises inspired by the beauty, myth and strangeness of the English
countryside. This lovely understated little tune can be found on THE FIRST ACTIVE LISTENER ACID FOLK SAMPLER, released in 2012, a compendium of all that is weird
and lovely in your acid folk circles.
DOCTOR MARMALADE’S PINK PEPPERMINT
SLICE MY COMFORT ZONE
Gentle psychedelia, but none the less
affecting for all that, from the splendidly named Doctor Marmalade’s Pink
Peppermint Slice, a band that clearly lays out its wares in its moniker alone. But
that’s pretty much all they do. You can search in vain for them online but all
I’ve been able to discover is that they, or indeed, he, may be from Melbourne. I found this
track on the ACTIVE LISTENER SAMPLER VOL. 5, my go-to site for all things new
and wonderful in the world of psychedelia.
PETER WALKER SOCCO CHICO
Some Indian vibes from Peter Walker,
Timothy Leary’s musical arranger for many a trip. I keep returning to this
album, ‘SECOND POEM TO KARMELA’ OR GYPSIES ARE IMPORTANT, released in 1968,
because it seems saturated with a particularly acid folk vibe that kind of
leaks into a trip likes clouds of patchouli scent. Some research reveals that
the somewhat mysterious album title is both a reference to the courtesan
Karmela with whom Siddhartha spends his middle years in Herman Hesse’s novel of
the same name (I expect, like me, when I happened across this fact, you’re now
slapping your forehead with a weak cry of “Of
course she is! Now that you come to
mention it, I can imagine that something hauntingly similar to this particular
track was exactly the sort of thing with which Siddhartha wooed his
dusky lover Karmela, no doubt reclining upon silk cushions of harem-like comfort, safe
in his true love’s arms, passing away the hours between twilight and dawn whilst peacocks call to each other on night-scented summer lawns, and musky scents
tease and tantalize the senses, as he plucked
gently on his sitar like a good ‘un (until he realized, of course, that
the luxurious lifestyle he had chosen was merely a game; empty of spiritual fulfilment;
and that time is an illusion and that all feelings and experiences, even those
of suffering, are part of a great and ultimately jubilant fellowship of all
things connected in the cyclical unity of nature), or something. I wonder why it’s called Socco Chico,
though?”, you no doubt added, thoughtfully. Is it an allusion to the belief held by Walker that Spanish
gypsies came from India and brought raga with them when they arrived in
Andalucia, inspiring within him a love of both flamenco and classical Indian
music? Yes, it probably is. Now, if we can just find out what Socco
Chico means…
MARTHAS AND ARTHURS COUNTING THE COLOURS UNTIL FRIDAY
Possibly the least psychedelic track on
this evening’s show, but one which boasts the most resolutely psychedelic
title. The two Arthurs are actually Matt
Hart and Tom Ball, the two Martha’s are Tom's sister Esther and Mary Douglas,
whose harmony-drenched, melancholy-tinged, folk songs put them around the same
campfire as the Mamas and Papas (if that inestimable band had actually spent
any time round a campfire in Herefordshire, say), although there is a touch of
Stuart Murdoch’s God Help The Girl in there too. None of this is to detract
from the loveliness of this song, or from the album whence it came, THE HIT
WORLD OF…MARTHAS AND ARTHURS, released 2012; the pastoral folk and layered
harmonies thereon mean it’s seldom off the turntable in these here parts.
BIBIO
OPAL EMERALD VERTIGO
Bibio, or Stephen Wilkinson to his mum, creates a sweetly
disorienting world of woozy melodies and dusty, saturated, sepia-tinged folk
that combines analogue tape and vintage recording equipment with a blend of
experimental electronica which places it somewhere between a Warp records demo
and flicking aimlessly through late night channels looking for a documentary
about the fading memories of childhood. This is the opening track from an album
called OVALS AND EMERALDS, released 2009, an album of eerie carnival-esque
melodies and skewed folktronica (a word I swore never to use, but can’t really
come with anything else).
LUCK OF EDEN HALL GREEN FAERY
Cosmic vibes, majestic strings and other
Beatle-esque psych-drenched effects are all featured in this track from 2012’s
ALLIGATORS EAT GUMDROPS, as well as a few brief tape samples used in a pleasingly
psychedelic manner. Green Faery melds
laughing gnome sentiment washed down with a tot of absinthe. Marvellous.
THE VELVET
UNDERGROUND WHAT GOES ON?
I could
never be doing with the cover (Patti Smith thought it ate shit and
I’m not one to disagree), but I’m a big fan of this album. Essentially the
recorded highlights of two separate gigs the band played in 1969, 1969: THE
VELVET UNDERGROUND LIVE WITH LOU REED was released in 1974 to cash in on Lou
Reed’s successful solo career but nevertheless contains some of their best
work: New Age is one of the most heroically saddest songs I’ve ever heard;
their version of Sweet Jane is definitive; and What Goes On stops me dead in my
tracks in order to properly blow my mind every time I hear it. This is a band
at the peak of their power.
ORVAL CARLOS SIBELIUS BURUNDI
Orval Carlos Sibelius (known to his
mother as the equally cool Alex Monneau) is a French psychedelic popster by
day and a member of a medieval prog folk quartet by night (or perhaps the other
way round). His third album SUPER FORMA, released in 2014, is a krautrock informed
mix of exotic, psychedelic forms that take in The Beach Boys, My Bloody
Valentine, Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd, Joe Meek and fellow countrymen Air along
the way, coagulating into a heady brew of synesthesia and pop loveliness.
Burundi is actually the hidden track at the end of the CD, available only to
those who bought the physical version of the album - 14 minutes of hypnotic rhythms and musique
concrète that meld the avant-garde psych folk of the Beta Band with Damon
Albarn’s African experiments. It’s pretty far out.
SYD ARTHUR EDGE OF THE UNIVERSE
(A MONSTROUS PSYCHEDELIC BUBBLE REMIX)
Noel Gallagher might have been too frightened of going weird, but Syd
Arthur embraced the opportunity to work with Amorphous Androgynous and gave
them a handful of tracks to work with resulting in the vinyl only 2014 release A
MONSTROUS PSYCHEDELIC BUBBLE (REMIXES BY THE AMORPHOUS ANDROGYNOUS), an album
that turns up the
saturation of the psychedelic dimensions within the Syd Arthur sonic
universe and puts them firmly at 11.
MOON
WIRING CLUB AUBADE
This is
the A-side to the vinyl version of the Moon Wiring Club’s LEPORINE PLEASURE
GARDENS, released earlier this year by Ian Hodgson. On this version, the beats found
on the CD version are pretty much replaced with a sepia-toned, crackling patina
of voices woven in and out of the ambient fabric, lending Aubade a tipsy,
dreamy, stumbling sense of motion through its elaborate narration to replicate
the feeling of drowsy summer games on the lawn with a surreal subtext of its
own waiting to be deciphered - it's just the ticket for daydreaming bedsit
dwellers and dilapidated aristocrats alike.
STEALING
SHEEP EVOLVE AND EXPAND
Their
first album, INTO THE DIAMOND SUN, had a kraut/acid folk vibe going for it that
suggested that Stealing Sheep had a lot of ideas and a lot of directions they
were chomping at the bit to explore. With their new album, NOT REAL, released
earlier this year, they deliver synthesisers into the mix but rather than
detract from their folk roots and choral-pop vocals, the heavy synths and
eclectic instrumentation give the band’s breezy sound an ever evolving quality.
The seemingly throwaway Evolve and Expand, apart from being a mission statement,
is as a disquieting piece of psychedelic whimsy as you are like to hear.
CYCLOBE THE HILLS ARE ALIVE WITH THE SMELL OF HIS
COMING
Cyclobe make
hallucinatory electronic soundscapes, mixing together sampled and heavily
synthesized sounds with acoustic arrangements for a variety of instruments that,
at any time, might include the hurdy-gurdy, border pipes, a duduk or
a clarinet. Their approach draws upon diverse forms,
including acousmatic, drone music, sound
collage, folk and progressive rock. At the very least they
create what you might call a mesmerising sound. The Hills Are Alive With The
Smell Of His Coming, is taken from their 2011 release, WOUNDED GALAXIES TAP AT
THEIR WINDOWS, an album title that tells you almost everything you need to know
about the sounds contained therein. This 17 minute track is built upon a
simple, yet darkly exotic backbone of kalimba and pipes and then builds to
include discordant cello and squealing strings that sound like the swirling
spirits of the damned; but in a good way.
BETA
BAND THE MONOLITH (excerpt)
Just a
short excerpt from the otherwise 15 minute Floydian dub collage that is The
Monolith, taken from their second EP, THE PATTY PATTY SOUND, originally
released in 1998 but which found its way onto their finest moment, The Three EPs
released later that same year. No one would particularly wish to listen The
Monolith twice – it kind of outstays its welcome – but I don’t mind having it
on in the background, on a Sunday evening say, while I’m preparing dinner
(sorry, that’s not a very psychedelic confession, is it?). I’ve used the bit
where they seem to be sampling something Martin Denny/Arthur Lyman-ish; a
speeded up version of something that sounds like it belongs on one of their
exotica albums (of which I own plenty), but, crucially, for a band that’s quite
happy to admit that they sample a backwards washing machine on full spin, or
even one of their own songs on this track (Dry The Rain), there is not mention
of a Martin Denny/Arthur Lyman sample anywhere on the credits. Maybe I need to
dig deeper. Or maybe I need to dig out my exotica collection.
THE TUI
TRIO BEAUTIFUL WAIHEKE ISLAND
This was
found in a pile of old albums at the back of the radio station recently and we
all embraced it into our shows. I know nothing about the band – their album,
THE TUI TRIO, was released in 1965, but other than that they have managed to
leave very little online trace of their goings-on, although I understand from
the album’s sleeve notes that iconic folksters Peter, Paul and Mary were quite
the fans. I’ve played around with it a little but, lovely, though, isn’t it?
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