MIND DE-CODER 107

MIND DE-CODER 107

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The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.

                                                                                                                                      W. B Yeats

13TH FLOOR ELEVATORS     SLIP INSIDE THIS HOUSE

I’ve never really truly fallen for the primitive proto-psychedelic charms of the 13th Floor Elevators, but just about every band I’ve ever liked has, so I’m happy to give them a play every now and then. Slip Inside This House is widely viewed by fans and critics alike as the Elevators’ masterpiece and one of the key psychedelic recordings of the era - the lyrical content is the culmination of lyricist and electric jug player Tommy Hall’s psychedelic exploration fused with his esoteric research, packed so densely that singer Roky Erikson complained it was like singing an encyclopedia. Tommy referred to the lyrics as ‘signposts’ - an invitation to the listener to investigate the ideas the band was proselytising. Originally recorded for their second album, EASTER EVERYWHERE, in 1967, it was recently included on the compilation album 13 OF THE VERY BEST, which purports to present the very highest sound quality of all surviving source material for the band’s recordings.

THE OPEN MIND     MAGIC POTION

The Open Mind were a bit late to the game but there’s no mucking about with their scorching 1969 release Magic Potion, a tie-dyed paean to lysergic exploration that hits you right between the third eye. Their eponymously titled album was released before they recorded this single but it, like Magic Potion, points towards a heavier scene taken up by the likes of Hawkwind, say. By this time the band had tired of progressive psychedelia wanted to move into more jazz-influenced music, but they were too well known as a psychedelic act. A name change in 1973 led to Armada but the band recorded no further music under this moniker and thus they disappeared into the psychedelic mysts of tyme.

THE CALIFORNIANS     THE COOKS OF CAKE AND KINDNESS

Despite being chosen to support no less than Jimi Hendrix, Cat Stevens, Engelbert Humperdink, and The Walker Brothers on a major package tour of the U.K. in 1967 The Californians never had a hit outside of their native Wolverhampton. Purveyors of Beach Boys-style harmony pop, they released a number of wholesome singles that rarely troubled the charts but The Cooks Of Cake And Kindness, is a real gem. Composed by the Ivy Leagues' John Carter, whose been all over Mind De-Coder recently, the record was given a full-blown psychedelic production reminiscent of The Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour complete with echoey horns, drums and organ along with electric fuzz guitar. It was the b-side of a 1969 release called Mandy so no one ever actually heard it at the time, and they never recorded an album, but all of their material was collected and released on the album THE CALIFORNIANS AND FRIENDS - EARLY MORNING SUN: 60S HARMONY POP PRODUCED BY IRVING MARTIN, a comprehensive look at vastly-underrated producer Irving Martin's big-budget harmony pop productions in the mid-to-late 60s.

MATT BERRY     LIFE UNKNOWN

Matt Berry is something of a renaissance man - actor, voice-over artist, writer and musician, producing a brace of releases for the idiosyncratic Acid Jazz record label, home to all things of a soul, jazz, funk, mod, folk or psychedelic nature, which is entirely fitting because over the years Berry has released albums in all of these genres and more. The catchy but slightly unnerving Life Unknown is taken from his 2020 release, BLUE ELEPHANT, a collection of heady and disorienting psychedelic songs and instrumentals packed with paisley-clad treasures. Every instrument, with the exception of drums, is played by Matt including a variety of keyboards and synthesizers - piano, Wurlitzer, mellotron, Moog, Hammond, Vox and Farfisa organs - to create a psych journey the late 60s in the style of a soundtrack to some cult art-house film. Marvellous.

THE CLEANERS FROM VENUS   FLOWERS OF DECEMBER

The semi-legendary Cleaners from Venus was formed in the small town of Wivenhoe, England, at the turn of 1980s by Martin Newell – a rock singer and part-time kitchen porter with a love of sunny 1960s pop music, punk rock, and musical comedy. These days the band consists of four 70 year-old guys who dress the same and look a bit like each other. The blissful dub of Flowers Of December is taken from their 2021 release PENNY NOVELETTES (although I think it also appears as the Up River Mix on the 2020 Flowers Of December EP), an album replete with wistful stories of lost love and observations on the everyday life of English folk.

SIMON ROWE     CROXTED CROWS

A trifling piece, but nonetheless pretty for all that, Croxted Crows opens the debut album EVERYBODY’S THINKING by Simon Rowe, the ex-guitarist from 90’s legends Chapterhouse and Mojave 3 with assistance from members of both those bands. Released earlier this year, it’s a wonderful, bittersweet affair that puts one in mind of the likes of Tim Hardin, Syd Barrett and Fred Neil, full of layered sounds which slowly unfold as a sweetly pastoral, gentle, psychedelic delight. It’s one of the ‘nicest ‘albums I’ve ever heard - there’s not an ounce of negativity, or a foreboding minor chord, to be heard anywhere on it. The track only last 70 seconds but I thought it worth including in the show. 

ANTON BARBEAU    STONE OF FIRE

Released hot-on-the-heels of early 2022's POWER POP!!!, Stone Of Fire is taken from the late 2022 release STRANGER, which digs a bit deeper into the mire of Barbeau's farm-bound pandemic mindset. A multi-coloured mess of fine, weird music results!

LAMP OF THE UNIVERSE     LOTUS OF A THOUSAND PETALS

Lamp of the Universe is the solo-project of Hamilton-based Craig Williamson, who was vocalist, lyricist and bass player in doom-metal stoner-rockers Datura - but this is the total opposite of that group's full-on rock overload. The patchouli-soaked Lotus Of A Thousand Petals is taken from his debut album THE COSMIC UNION, an incense-drenched mellow groove of a listen, with sitars, tablas, flute, keyboards, spacious guitar and stoned trancy drumming, released in 2001. The authentic eastern flavoured '60s sound is comparable to Dead Flowers, Saddar Bazaar and Tangle Edge, combined with the hypnotic groove of Spacemen 3 and the spacier moments of Porcupine Tree. The perfect, opium-hazed soundtrack for what we might euphemistically call a ‘quiet night in’.

KYRON     FADE INTO TRANSPARENCY

The hypnogogic Fade Into Transparency is taken from the second solo release by João Branco Kyron, the lead singer of Mind De-Coder favourites, Beautify Junkyards. DREAMING EDEN is an electronic reverie inspired by Christopher Priest’s novel ‘A Dream of Wessex’, a late 1970s take on the notion of virtual reality in which participants escape the harsh reality of their world into a kind of consensus utopian future. The album, released earlier this year, is comprised of drifting melodies, melodic psychedelia, dusty archive sounds and synthesized rhythms and feels like the soundtrack to a dream, in that nothing stays fixed, melodies develop then collapse, trident rhythms strike up and then unravel into fragments. Contemporary hauntology at its dreamiest.

THE SOFT HEARTED SCIENTISTS     GADZOOKS!

This year saw the welcome return of Cardiff’s psychedelic collective The Soft Hearted Scientists with the release of their eighth album, the wonderful WALTZ OF THE WEEKEND. It’s an immersive listen, infectiously melodic and stuffed to the eyeballs with vocal and instrumental hooks which invite you to dive in and explore its multi-layered labyrinthine depths. Gadzooks! is an insanely psychedelic listen that gets progressively more insane, featuring a sly echo vocal nod to Bowie’s The Bewlay Brothers, crazed guitars, a string section, an out-of-tune bar room piano, speaking in tongues and an ending FAR more over the top than a Bond theme. Album of the year.

THE TEARDROP EXPLODES     POPPIES

To celebrate the release of CULTURE BUNKER 1978-1982, a massive six CD/7 vinyl retrospective of the Teardrops, replete with lots of rarities, unreleased demos, and live material, I thought I’d include the slick neo-psychedelia of Poppies, initially taken from their debut album KILIMANJARO in 1980. The backwards guitar was added by the mystic Alan Gill, taking a break from his day job in the quirky synth-pop duo Dalek I. The song glides along on a pulsating lysergic groove that never fails to mesmerize. Sublime.

KIKAGAKO MOYO     MEU MAR

This gorgeous track is taken from KUMOYO ISLAND, the fifth and final album by Japan’s hirsute psychedlicists Kikagako Moyo. Released last year, it’s a euphoric mind-trip, taking in ripples of Tropicália, dub, raga rock, new age, English folk, Anatolian psych and every shade of krautrock experimentation - a celebration, in fact, of everything that made Kikagoyo Moyo so very special. For a band that wrote lyrics in an imaginary language of invented syllables in the attempt to make their music universal, it’s worth noting that for Meu Mar, an Erasmo Carlos cover, the original Portuguese lyrics were translated into English, then to Japanese conjuring an image of the protagonist floating among the clouds, looking down upon Tokyo Bay. Best-suited for counting stars, looking at the ocean, and dancing in one’s daydream.

ASTRAL MAGIC     RAINBOW BUTTERFLY

Astral Magic is a new psychedelic solo project started in 2020 by Santtu Laakso, bass and Moog player with the Finnish psychedelic space-rock band Dark Sun. His debut album, MAGICAL KINGDOM, released last year, takes the listener on a psych-prog journey into the land of dreams and fairy tales and is very much at home to the sort of cosmic, ambient excursions into other dimensions inspired by the likes of Hawkwind, Gong, Eloy, or Pink Floyd. The almost synaesthetically titled Rainbow Butterfly puts me in mind of Hawkwind’s Nik Turner’s more spacey improvisations, but there’s nothing wrong with, of course. In fact, that’s something of a recommendation, and I can’t be doing with the saxophone at all, me.

DOROTHY ASHBY     THE MOVING FINGER

I included a track from Dorothy Ashby’s astounding 1970 release THE RUBAIYAT OF DOROTHY ASHBY in my last show, but I’m not finished with exploring its heady grooves just yet. The album closes with its greatest cut, The Moving Finger. Introduced by what seems like an Eastern Buddhist chant, it quickly slips into harp, koto, guitars, drums, and bass bump. Strings are added for drama playing repeating two-note vamps before vibes take the thing into outer space. The slippery guitar groove and alto solo that cut right into the flesh of the blues turn it into a solid late-night groover with plenty of soul. It is exotic, mysterious, laid-back, and full of gentle grooves and soul. An astounding listen.

DONOVAN     OH GOSH

I love Donovan’s A GIFT FROM A FLOWER TO A GARDEN. Released in 1967 it represents the apogee of British flower power - gentle, playful, fey and entirely unironic. In fact, it’s so gentle, so playful, and so fey it’s the sort of thing that makes Donovan a bit of a joke in some circles, and I’ve been guilty of this myself. But the whole album, as exemplified by Oh Gosh is so good natured and free of cynicism, that one would have to be a hard-hearted Shakespearian villain to ignore its charms. 

THE UNEXPLAINED     A WALK DOWN EMILY LANE

Possibly the best thing about this track is the title, but don’t let that put you off. It's a clever play on words and a namecheck for Emily, Syd Barrett's muse, a signifier for British psychedelia in itself, which I think might be the point. This instrumental track originally appeared on the grandaddy of all British psych compilation albums, CHOCOLATE SOUP FOR DIABETICS VOL. 1, released in 1980, sending an army of crate diggers searching for the original recording - all in vain. The title is so arch, so knowing, that it has been suggested that A Walk Down Emily Lane was recorded exclusively for the album by an 80's mystery group, so don't waste your time trying to find the record, I don't think it exists.

FENELLA     HEXAGONAL TABLE

Fenella is Jane Weaver’s experimental side-project developed initially to provide an alternative soundtrack to an obscure Hungarian animated film called Fehérlófia a couple of years ago, and you can tell it’s an experimental side-project because only an experimental side-project would name a track Hexagonal Table. This track is taken from their most recent release THE METALLIC INDEX, inspired by the true story set in the 1920s of a nurse who had psychic powers, and could tell who was lying and telling the truth. It’s an album that takes in atmospheric, ambient, immersive synth soundscapes and ripples of cosmic electronics that shift from the beautifully immersive to the hauntingly eerie - Hexagonal Table’s pitch-bent synth lines conjuring a mood that’s both soothingly pastoral and deeply uncanny.

GORKY’S ZYGOTIC MYNCI     CURSED, COINED, AND CRUCIFIED

Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci’s 1997 release BARAFUNDLE is an album I like to return to time and time again when I’m in the mood for off-kilter psych-folk melodies, erratic time signatures and medieval chamber arrangements (which is all the time, really). Released at the height of Britpop’s coke-fuelled excess, this is an album that owes more to the sort of gentle psilocybin-inspired otherworldliness one associates with Welsh watermeadows and dew-soaked maidens with eyes the size of dinner plates. I was playing it the other day and was enchanted by the sweetly sedate instrumental Cursed, Coined and Crucified and thought I must include it in the next show, so I have.

MOON WIRING CLUB     TIME AS ICE CREAM

For centuries now, the perplexed, restless, enquiring listener - displeased with the musically obvious - has pertinently demanded to know why there is simply no musicke that successfully emulates the texture of slowly melting ice cream (where numerous colours and ingredients seep into each other) whilst simultaneously providing the sensation of divine motion-sickness derived from spending too long reading eerie medieval manuscripts within an over-heated vestry. Ian Hodgson’s Moon Wiring Club can now definitely answer that question with a scoop or two of MEDIEVAL ICE CREAM, released earlier this year.

EMMANUELLE PARRENIN     MAISON ROSE

This is the title track from a magical album released in 1977 by French folk singer, harpist and hurdy-gurdy player Emmanuelle Parrenin who was first active in the late 1960s and 1970s as part of "le mouvement folk". The album is something of a psychedelic, ethereal folk masterpiece that still feels suspended outside time, a real haven of peace with an aura of mystery and spirituality, and gentle songs which seem both ancestral and futurist. She once opened for The Clash and caused a riot.

THE SOFT HEARTED SCIENTISTS     SEA ANEMONE SONG/SEA ANEMONES IN THE BENTHIC ABYSS

I’m so very taken with the new album by The Soft Hearted Scientists I thought I’d include this special mix I segued together of Sea Anenome Song, taken from the album, with a special remix of the track by producer Frank Naughton called Sea Anenomes In The Benthic Abyss which currently is only available to listen to on YouTube. Sea Anemone Song is a huge heartbroken psych ballad, channelling a lot of the awful things that have happened in the last 3 years (not to me, thank God), with an end section that gradually disintegrates on an asteroid belt. Naughton’s remix strips the song to the bone and rebuilds it as a psychological horror movie soundtrack. I’ve mixed the two together in what I hope is a sympathetic manner that won’t upset anyone concerned to create a track some 13 minutes long for your continued listening psychedelic pleasure. Lose yourself in this one.

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