MIND DE-CODER 101
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“I enjoyed every trip I ever had”
Grace Slick
DANIEL M. GRIFFIN YOU’RE GONNA LOSE YOUR MIND
Daniel M. Griffin has a spiritual home somewhere between 1966-1968 and a love for Magical Mystery Tour-era Beatles in particular. You’re Gonna Lose Your Mind sounds like one of the great lost George Harrison b-sides, every bit the equal to some tragically lost Lennon/McCartney a-side. Favouring vintage analog equipment, his album of the same name, released earlier this year, is a love letter to the sound of the psychedelic sixties. Pink Floyd, spacey-David Bowie, and King Crimson also get a look-in. Trippy and timeless.
BANGING COLOURS THE LOVE AND FUN BRIGADE
Frankly, they had me at the album title - HALLUCINOGENIC TREASURES FROM THE CONVOLUTION OF AN IMAGINATIVE BRAIN - but there’s more going on here than you might at first suspect. Following in the proud tradition of XTC’s The Dukes of Stratosphear and Andrew Gold’s The Fraternal Order Of The All, Banging Colours is a similar project - taking on the guise of a long lost psychedelic band who were the peers of Pink Floyd and Tomorrow, had a handful of gigs at UFO and Middle Earth, shared the stage with Hendrix and The Soft Machine, released a single but who ultimately never quite made it - in fact, Tomorrow are a very good example of who Banging Colours are supposed to be. HALLUCINOGENIC TREASURES FROM THE CONVOLUTION OF AN IMAGINATIVE BRAIN purports to be the collected works of the band, consisting of recently unearthed lost tapes, studio jams and radio sessions. A lot of the websites reviewing this album are in on the joke - or maybe they’re not (try Googling them, go on) - but, truth be told, I don’t know who's responsible for the album, only that they’re clearly in love with the era. Featuring jazzy drumming, washes of mellotron, guitar, and, remarkably, a scratchy violin, the album captures the spirit of 67-68 with pop-psych gems like The Love And Fun Brigade, and trippy extended jams which witness shades of early prog, the album channels the spirit of the psychedelic experience. Highly recommended for lovers of this sort of thing.
FLIPPER’S GUITAR THE WORLD TREE
Flipper’s Guitar were pretty much the godfathers of Japan’s Shibuya-kei music scene - a genre which took sonic cues from California ’60s soft rock and psych-pop, French Ye-Ye, Chicago house, East Coast hip-hop sampling, krautrock, Scottish anorak pop, Madchester club beats, Brazilian bossa nova, Italian film soundtracks and any other internationalist, retro-futurist genres - essentially Western music created by Japanese artists - that existed briefly in the early to mid-90s, not that many people outside of Japan noticed at the time. (I’m a big fan, me - check out my Shibuya-kei mix here for more information). The World Tree is taken from their third album DOCTOR HEAD’S WORLD TOWER, released in 1991 - a sample heavy album very much indebted to the Madchester-inspired music scene of the time - Primal Scream’s SCREAMADELICA makes up much of the album’s musical blueprint, as does My Bloody Valentine’s ISN’T ANYTHING, The Monkees’ HEAD and SMILE-era Beach Boy vocal harmonies, and if you think that sounds brilliant you’re perfectly right - it’s one of the best albums of the 90s and well worth tracking down.
CAT’S EYES DOOR NO. 2
A trifling piece, but very pleasant nevertheless, from the soundtrack to Peter Strickland’s 2014 tale of erotica, ‘The Duke Of Burgundy’. Produced by Cat’s Eyes - a duo comprised of Horrors singer Faris Badwan and Italian-Canadian soprano Rachel Zeffira - the soundtrack is a haunting mix of orchestral textures, harpsichords and strings, music concrète and an overall 70s vibe inspired by Broadcast-style hauntological themes and the soundtracks of John Barry and Nino Rota (who did “The Godfather’’ soundtrack.) Dark, sinister and very lovely.
JOE WONG ALWAYS ALONE
Joe Wong is a Los Angeles-based composer, musician, producer, and podcast host whose television work includes, amongst many others, the soundtrack to Netflix’s ‘Russian Doll’. Very much at home with working with your 24-piece orchestras, his debut album, NITE CREATURES, released last year, is a mesmerising mix of baroque soundscapes, wigged-out orchestral grandeur and psychedelia, filtered through the likes of Love and The Zombies' ODESSEY AND ORACLE. Always Alone goes off into so many surprising tangents - at times funky, at others tribal, elsewhere channelling a particularly 70s orchestral vibe - that it's best just to sit back and enjoy the trip - it will take you somewhere pretty far-out, or, indeed, far-in.
ARTHUR BROWN THE SPONTANEOUS APPLE CREATION
Pretty much considered a novelty act these days, The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown were actually one of the key bands in the psychedelic underground scene, particularly favoured by heads. That being said the popularity of their key hit, Fire, brought them mainstream fame ensuring their debut album, THE CRAZY WORLD OF ARTHUR BROWN, released in 1967, reached the top of the charts in both the Uk and America, which is more than can be said for the likes of S.F. SORROW, say, or ODESSEY AND ORACLE, both of which sold very little at the time but have since been critically re-evaluated. Perhaps it’s time THE CRAZY WORLD OF ARTHUR BROWN was re-evaluated - there’s lots to enjoy on the album. Brown’s original intent was to produce an album-long rock opera about hell, but producer Kit Lambert wanted to produce a more overtly commercial record (obvs), so only side one dealt with this initial concept whilst side two was given over to more varied material. Not that this made the album a necessarily commercial proposition - The Spontaneous Apple Creation remains a willfully histrionic, atonal recording that must have had a lot of pop-pickers on either side of the Atlantic scratching their heads.
THE WHO HEINZ BAKED BEANS
One of the fake ads created for THE WHO SELL OUT, recorded in 1967 at the tail-end of the swinging 60s when Pop art mixed with psychedelia resulting in an album unmatched by any other band at the time. It’s The Who’s last great pop album - TOMMY was to follow in two years' time, but for now this was the moment in which pop art, psychedelia and consumerism met their natural apotheosis.
THE FIRE FATHER'S NAME IS DAD
The Fire’s debut single is a compelling psych-pop gem released in 1968 recorded under the aegis of The Beatles’ Apple Records. Legend has it that when Paul McCartney first heard it played on the radio he was so keen for it to become a hit that he demanded it be withdrawn and re-recorded with added harmony vocals and an extra guitar overdub to beef it up. The band duly reserviced the single, but it didn't do any good since the single completely bombed. Such is the way of things. It does mean that there are two versions of this cracking record knocking about but, in this instance, I'm choosing to go with the slightly beefier version. Eagle-eared listeners with rather more catholic tastes might recognize that The Pet Shop Boys sampled the guitar intro for their track I Didn't Get Where I Am Today, the b-side to their (presumably) hit single Flamboyant, released in 2004.
FOREVER AMBER THE DREAMER FLIES BACK
Released in 1969, an original copy of THE LOVE CYCLE, by Forever Amber, is considered one of the Holy Grails of lost albums amongst collectors of your rare psychedelia. In truth, it wasn’t so much lost as unheard of, being privately pressed and limited to a run of 99 copies to avoid having to pay a purchase tax that was applicable on any orders of 100 or more in them days. THE LOVE CYCLE was a concept album revolving around the meeting, courtship and break-up of a young couple, masterminded by songwriter/arranger John Hudson, an 18-year old accountancy student, who found in Cambridge band The Country Cousins the perfect vehicle for his songwriting ideas. Hastily renamed Forever Amber, the album was recorded in a single 19-hour session at a makeshift studio, located in the basement of a music shop, and features a mélange of Brit-pop and psychedelia, with considerable folkie overtones, and is, in fact, highly regarded by fans of this sort of thing. As the full title suggests, The Talking - The Dreamer Flies Back - all heavy phasing and intensely psychedelic - is taken from the early part of the relationship when the couple first meets and, to me, is reminiscent of swooning over the girl who works in the trouser shop when you were seventeen. The album was sold at local gigs, and at least one copy made it to the Eighties where it became a much-prized item in your psychedelic circles. It’s recently been re-issued with extensive notes and rare photos and is now available for all to hear. Bob Stanley of St. Etienne is a fan.
RANDY GREIF SHE LOOKED DOWN AT HER FEET
Now, this is weird, even by my standards. You could, if you wished, eschew Mind De-Coder and instead listen to this album during your next trip and you would not feel cheated. In 1988, Randy Greif, who rose to relative prominence with his left-field recording label that releases avant-garde noise on cassettes, found an old three-LP audiobook of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland at a charity shop and began idly warping and enhancing it. Over the next five years he added a blend of radio serials, tape loop cut-ups, avant-garde classical cacophony, clanking early industrial textures, horror movie soundtracks, and brooding ambiance over the course of six mind-bending hours (and not especially seamlessly) and the result is something quite spectacular. It’s very much of its time, and given the technology of the time it can sometimes seem a bit clunky, but many people have called this album a psychedelic classic over the years and I don't disagree, but this is something more than a great album: this is a complete, self-enclosed sound world. Originally released in the Netherlands between 1991 and 1993 on tape cassette, it’s since been re-released as a 5-CD box set in 2000.
TOM THUMB LUDGATE HILL
Tom Thumb were a Wellington-based group whose rocking live performances were completely at odds with the MOR single releases foisted upon them by their record company. All came right in 1970 when they recorded what is generally regarded as New Zealand's first prog-rock mini-epic - The Ludgate Hill EP - telling the sonic tale of the nuclear devastation of Ludgate Hill, inspired by the 1666 great fire of London. It was probably ahead of its time - dainty piano motifs vied with searing Deep Purple organ riffs and plundered sound effects - and, at nearly ten minutes in length, too much for most DJ’s to cope with. It sank without a trace but as far as swan songs go, they don’t get much better than this.
THE UNTHANKS WINTER GEORGE
A delightful bit of filler from The Unthanks' soundtrack to Mackenzie Crook's 2019 reimagining of Worzel Gummidge. Using minimal instrumentation and sparse vocals, the music mixes natural themes with the ethereal to explore the natural and mystical world, and is a truly wondrous piece of work. I’m not entirely sure it has ever been released on vinyl or CD but is available on all the usual digital sites.
BOBBY CALLENDER THE GLOW WITHIN THEE
The Glow Within Thee is a bonus track that accompanied the 2000 re-release of RAINBOW, an obscure, low-key masterpiece of mystical psychedelia and baroque pop from the relatively unsung Bobby Callender. Originally released in 1968, weightless clouds of sitar, tabla, harpsichord, strings and more gather and hover like angels over Callender's hazy vocals as he sings his tone poems in psychedelic troubadour mode. It’s the sort of thing that makes Donovan sound like a hard-rocker and cynics might think that this is exactly the sort of fey, hippy flower-power mysticism that gives fey, hippy flower-power mysticism a bad name, yet there is undeniable charm here.
ROKUROKUBI KATY LEVITATING
You can almost smell the patchouli wafting through the air as you listen to the incredible new album from Rokurokubi. IRIS, FLOWER OF VIOLENCE is a masterclass in acid-folk explorations of oddness and sensuality, taking in nightmarish fairy tales and nursery-rhyme vocals, 60s flower child daydreams, haunted, baroque embellishments that erupt into blasts of distortion, medieval soundscapes, lysergic, paisley-patterned lyricism and wyrd chamber-folk loveliness. Katy Levitating is a witch song of deep magic and cackling madness, one that tumbles willingly into a finale of massed fuzz guitars, tripped out flutes and exclamatory vocals that suggest that something has gone very wrong in the nursery.
MAGICK BROTHER AND MYSTIC SISTER UTOPIA
Well, this is quite lovely. Magick Brother and Mystic Sister are a Spanish band very much at home to the Canterbury Sound, and Gong in particular (as the name suggests) and they do a very fine line in flute-driven, jazz-tinged, space-prog. Their self-titled debut album, released last year, was supposedly recorded in Gaudi’s Park Güell (I say 'supposedly' because last time I was there, I didn't notice any recording studios, but who knows what goes on behind the park's remarkable facades?), and captures something of that place’s magical ambience. Utopia enjoys a dreamy, wordless, psychedelic vibe that owes much to Paintbox-era Pink Floyd - it’s seldom off the stereogram these days; its misty, vibrant sound very much a tonic for the times.
MOON WIRING CLUB EMPTY DOOR IN THE EYE OF THE SUN
Ian Hodgson continues his exploration of feline-related eeriness with his new album THE ONLY CAT LEFT IN TOWN, which features four long-form multi-temporal reverberated-deserted compositions that elongate accepted components into an epic psychedelic baroque gothic stylish sunken-techno rolling ebb tide of eternal grey-green mist. Empty Door In The Eye Of The Sun is indisputably the finest Incantation Stylish Ritual Sunken Techno musicke of 1770 / 2021 + and is an ideal accompaniment for all green-grey mist shrouded deserted town (dead) centre ambling situations.
OH! PENELOPE THE RED BALLOON
Oh! Penelope were Johnny-Come-Lately’s to the Shibuya-kei movement, which had pretty much run its course by the time they released their only album, BREAD AND COOKIES, in 1997, but 1) what a cool name for a band, and 2) what a cool album, full of vibrant, catchy pop songs featuring swooning horns, a full orchestra, plundered samples and psychedelic interludes. On the whole, I’m more of a fan of the retro-futurist side of the Shibuya-kei sound - the French Ye-Ye, Brazilian bossa nova and Italian film soundtracks stylings as exemplified by the likes of Pizzicato 5, Kahimi Karie and Fantastic Plastic Machine particularly tick lots of boxes, but The Red Balloon is pure psych-pop gorgeousness - derivative, yes, but that’s kind of the point. Entirely joyful.
THE AMORPHOUS ANDROGYNOUS WE PERSUADE OURSELVES WE ARE IMMORTAL
ERIC BURDON AND THE ANIMALS YES I AM EXPERIENCED
Eric Burdon was such a fan of Jimi Hendrix he recorded Yes I Am Experienced as a response to Hendrix’s own Are You Experienced before that album was even released. It was initially recorded for WINDS OF CHANGE, the debut release by Eric Burdon and The (new psychedelic) Animals, in 1967, but I prefer this live version, recorded in Stockholm in 1968, which I think has an edge over the studio version. The recently departed guitarist Vic Briggs maintained the group were better live than in the studio and, in this instance, I’m inclined to agree - at the very least, the band just sound as if they’re having so much fun. You can find this track on the album ROADRUNNERS, a collection of otherwise unavailable live performances from 1966-1968, taken from shows in Melbourne, Stockholm, London, and the '67 Monterey Pop Festival, as well as radio and television broadcasts, released in 1990.
THE VELVET UNDERGROUND SWEET JANE
I think that this is pretty much the definitive version of Sweet Jane, although I understand that it was pretty much a work in progress at the time, and the first time it was played. This is taken from the album 1969: THE VELVET UNDERGROUND LIVE, released in 1974. Recorded at The Matrix in San Francisco, this version has a different chord progression and includes the pretty “heavenly wine and roses” melody that was edited out of the version that the band recorded for LOADED in 1970. Of course, Lou Reed had left the band by the time of its release and spent the rest of his life moaning that the song had been re-edited without his consent. Evs, babe. He recorded several other versions of this lovely song, but this is by far my favourite.
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