Mind De-Coder 112

MIND DE-CODER 112

To listen to the show just scroll to the bottom of the page

 The snowflake has melted!

 

ALAN BLACK     ADVENTURE THROUGH INNER SPACE (excerpt)

 Mash-up artist, screenwriter, polymath - in truth, Alan Black retired from the world of creating mash-ups back in 2019, but he’s left a treasure trove of albums to download and explore on his website . Expect to discover aural soundscapes and ambient creations adapted from a plethora of sources which include the paranormal, historical, literary, philosophical, film, radio, and comedy excerpts, and, in this instance, Disneyland. Adventure Through Inner Space is taken from his 2018 DISNEYLAND REVISITED and is all over the show, allowing the listener to dip into inner and outer space as the mood takes you…

 

APPLETREE THEATRE     …IN THE BEGINNING…

 This spoken word track almost gets lost with everything else going on in the first few minutes of the show, but In The Beginning is taken from the 1968 release, PLAYBACK, by Terrance and John Boylan, previously of The Ginger Men, an act blending rock 'n' roll with folk and blues. After landing a solo contract Terrance recruited his brother and a group of session musicians to concoct this psych-baroque concept album under the name of Appletree Theatre. It was a loosely woven affair, divided into three acts, an overture, and an epilogue, with full-length pop songs linked by vocal narratives and snatches of music, including elements of jazz, acid rock, and classical music. It sold moderately well, given a certain definition of 'moderately well', but both John Lennon and John Peel counted themselves fans, which still counts for something in my book (that would be The Mind De-Coder Book of Vicarious Pleasures, but it sadly got lost on the way to the printers).

 

MOON WIRING CLUB     GHOSTS OF THE UNDERGROUND MARKET

 Witness the entirely shonky, cronky and wonky Ghosts Of The Underground Market, summoned from a congealing swirl of antique cultural entertainment detritus! This is taken from the most recent release from Ian Hodgson’s Moon Wiring Club, SEPIA CAT CITY - the ill-logical conclusion to the Cat Location LP Trilogy that began with THE MOST UNUSUAL CAT IN THE VILLAGE, continued with THE ONLY CAT LEFT IN TOWN  and now presented as a magnificently dilapidated denouement with Maximum AudioRot Collage techniques in unique MWC stylee. SEPIA CAT CITY is a place seemingly drained of vital nutrients, where architectural styles overleap and overlap, infrastructures crumble, concreted underground markets team with monochromatic-kaleidoscopic memory patterns and unruly yet stylish ghost youth gangs such as the MOSTLY ALMOST SEPIA SOCIETY gather around closing-down department stores and glass corridors over the motorway to jeer mockingly: “GET ON THE TELLY!”

 

RIVAL SELF     PHENOMENOLOGY

 Phenomenology is taken from a superb trip of an album by producer, DJ, turntable musician, and cassette looper, Rival Self, an artist well known within your hip hop circles since the mid-90s, but who seems to have passed me by until the release of his self-titled debut LP last year. It’s a meticulously detailed field trip through the mind of a 60s-obsessed crate-digger, very much aligned with the likes of DJ Shadow and Kid Koala. Combining a love of psychedelia with the spirit of jazz, he’s not beyond stitching together the stoned philosophical musings of Eric Burden alongside snippets of wordplay from the likes of Rakim and Blackalicious, appearing to have accidentally created his own sub-genre of instrumental hip hop in the process. I count myself a fan.

 

THE LOVE MACHINE     INNER EAR FREAKOUT.

 This track pretty much does what it says on the label. Inner Ear Freakout is taken from the 1968 psychsploitation release ELECTRONIC MUSIC TO BLOW YOUR MIND BY!!!, a cynical studio ploy to cash-in on the hippie craze sweeping America. Recorded by session musicians eager to try out all the new buttons on the mixing desk - stereo panning, phasing, outer space synth, and moog sounds abound - it shouldn’t work but it does, and the result is as groovy as fuck.

 

BROADCAST     I BLINK YOU BLINK

I Blink You Blink is  short vignette from SPELL BLANKET, a recently released collection of Trish Keenan’s demos, home recordings, and voice notes for what would most likely have been Broadcast’s fifth album. Oscillating from minute-long loop fragments and textural studies to more fleshed-out, properly arranged songs, Keenan’s otherworldly vocals bring a hauntological ambience to these once lost tunes. I understand that the basket is now empty, and that this is the last material Broadcast will ever release - if so this album plays out as a very fine tribute to the band’s singular brand of retro-futurist psychedelia. The time has come to finally let Trish Keenan go, I guess, and let her return to wherever, or whenever, has made a home for her; and for James Cargill, who formed broadcast with Keenan in 1995, to finally move on, too.

 

ALAN BLACK     ADVENTURE THROUGH INNER SPACE (excerpt)

 We return for another brief dive into the immersive world of Alan Black and the Disneyland ride.

 

JOHN ST. FIELD     DUNE VOICES

 John St. Field was a pseudonym adopted by the semi-legendary Scottish songwriter and folk-musician Jackie Leven back in the early seventies, due to unspecified problems with ‘the forces of law and order.’ Whatever those problems were, they resulted in Jackie’s debut album, CONTROL, recorded in 1971, only being made available in Spain upon release. It’s a whimsical affair, very much at home to the copious amounts of LSD he was taking at the time, as evidenced by this track, the effects-laden Dune Voices. He went on to build a devoted cult following during his lengthy, wildly varied, and often turbulent career but never achieved the level of success that he deserved, but it all began here.

 

PAUL ROLAND     SUMMER OF 1810

 Summer of 1810 is taken from the psych-folk gem WYRD TALES OF ANTIQUARY, released last year, by English singer-songwriter, author, music journalist and all round psychedelic cult celebrity Paul Roland (he’s also been credited with spearheading steampunk music, but we won’t go there). The album (his 25th) features a combination of pastoral interludes and delicately orchestrated acoustic songs which create an atmosphere as evocative as the title suggests. Magickal and transportative.

 

NICK NICELY     DAY THAT NEVER CAME.

 …and speaking of semi-legendary psychedelic cult celebrities, the new single from the greatest pop star that never was, nick nicely (always in the lower key) is a bit of a lysergic treat, and is available to download from Bandcamp right now.

 

RIDE     LIGHT IN A QUIET ROOM

For their 7th album (their 3rd since reforming), Ride have taken all the power from their debut album and dialled it up to 11, or possibly 13 - every track sounds like the momentous closing track from a stupendous album - Light In A Quiet Room, for example, is only track 3, but is epic, a psychedelic barrage of sound that grows from an understated wistful beginning. Amidst the sonic-cathedral sound palette of swirling guitars and dreamy vocals, INTERPLAY also contains funky basslines, shuffling breakbeats, ephemeral synths, fragmented samples, strings and pianos, and moments of electronic processing. It’s a dynamic listen, to say the least.

 

THE APPLETREE THEATRE     LOTUS FLOWER

 

A second track from the baroque-psych concept album PLAYBACK, this track, something of a delightful instrumental groover, complete with reverse tape effects, also appeared as the b-side to the second and final single released to promote the album in 1968.

 

NICK FRATER     LOOSE TEA IN DISGUISE

Croydon-based singer/songwriter, producer, multi-instrumentalist Nick Frater has made the ultimate pastiche album - a pastiche of a pastiche, in fact. NICK FRATER PRESENTS THE PREBUTLES 1967-1970, released last year, is a loving homage not to The Beatles, but to The Rutles - the original pre-fab four. Eleven unheard songs from The Prebutles' time experimenting with tea and the studio. Recorded using period instruments and techniques, it’s heartwarming stuff, but remember…nothing is real.

 

ASTRAL SON     NOTHING REMAINS

 Astral Son is the moniker employed by Dutch musician, studio wizard, and artist Leonardo Soundweaver when he needs to scratch his psychedelic itch. He creates a lysergic soundscape that exists somewhere between Pink Floyd at their most Astronomy Domine-ness and Spacemen 3 at their most Transparent Radiation-ness - truly it is a place to lose yourself in. Taken from the album MYTHOS, released last year, opening track Nothing Remains shimmers with Barrett-esque chord changes over a motorik groove. Trippy progressive psychedelia at its best.

 

LES BIG BYRD     THE NIGHT BUS

 … and speaking of trippy, progressive psychedelia at its best, Sweden’s Les Big Byrd return with the immersive and experimental DIAMONDS, RHINESTONES AND HARD RAIN, released last year. It’s a mesmerising swirl of sound influenced by everything from disco to a kind of astral spacerock that puts me in mind of Hawkwind as much as it does Spiritualised. But as Jack Kerouac used to say: All comparisons are odious, and album closer The Night Bus finds room to wander down sonic avenues all of its own. I’m no fan of the saxophone, me, rating it barely above the recorder for what it can add to a song, but on this track, the effect is electrifyingly kosmiche.

 

HIERONYMUS HARRY     MARSH OF LOVE

Hieronymus Harry is the non de plume employed by the Toronto-based Harrison Forman, whose debut album, released originally on cassette and then digitally in 2022, invokes a time, place, and feeling that is strikingly different from our present moment. Harkening back to the late 1960s when artists like Pentangle, and the Incredible String Band conjured madcap, mystical worlds, THE RIVER OF DOOM captures naturalistic performances on acoustic instruments to create spellbinding surrealist folk songs.  Marsh Of Love enjoys a haunted melody that puts one in mind of Skip Spence embracing his inner weirdness, but the whole album has this surreal outsider vibe that’s best enjoyed sitting by a campfire deep inside your mind.

 

 ALAN BLACK     ADVENTURE THROUGH INNER SPACE (excerpt)

 In which our hero explores a snowflake. A real one. Not a Trump supporter.

 

LAETITIA SADIER     LA NAGEUSE NUE

 ROOTING FOR LOVE*, the latest release from Stereolab’s Laetitia Sadier, employs a palette of humming synths, wandering bass, gentle vibraphone clatter, exotica-hued lounge elements and the sort of intricate backing vocals that suggest this is a Stereolab with the guitars turned down. But the disparate textures and dreamscapes hide an understated fury that can be quite shocking when you actually begin to pay attention to the words. The sociopolitical spirit that always drove Stereolab is still proudly on display here, with songs calling for an end to this era of isolation, fragmentation, and a striving for collective knowledge. I’ve no idea what the Wurlitzer-enhanced La Nageuse Nue is all about (a quick Google search translates the title to The Naked Swimmer, if that’s any help) - Sadier’s deadpan delivery is playfully arch - but it slips and slides across an exotica-tinged landscape with a lysergic melody all of its own.

 (* Don’t get me started on what that title means here in New Zealand.)

 

EAMON RA     HAPPIEST DAY GONE ASTRAY 

Happiest Day Gone Astray is a small perfect interlude of gauzy woodwind and backwards bits taken from the album DUNCE WITCH SNOWMAN, released last year by Seattle DIY pop maven Eamon Ra, an artist very much at home to The Kinks, although not necessarily on this track.

 

LUNER DUNES     FREE TO DO 

Trippy instrumental space music from Luner Dunes, a band whose second album, GALAXSEA, looks to both krautrock grooves and Miles Davis for inspiration. Released in 2011, it was a truly kaleidoscopic mix of trippy acid-rock, haunting choirs, lounge moves, and deep bass dives. It’s recently been given the re-release treatment with a bonus six tracks. Essential listening for space cadets.

 

JULIAN COPE     POET IS PRIEST

This is the full 22-minute version of Poet Is Priest, originally recorded for Cope’s heathen folk masterpiece JEHOVAHKILL in 1992, but rejected by his record company at the time (alongside much of the rest of the album, truth be told - Island Records dropped him from their roster within a week of the album’s release). That version of the album featured a considerably truncated version of the track, but 2006 saw a deluxe version of the album re-released with the full-length version included as a bonus track. It’s an epic piece, in every sense of the word, a krautrock funk song featuring a shamanic guitar riff, rave influences, and incorporating "acoustic astrology" from astronomer and musician Fiorella Terenzi, an Italian-born astrophysicist, author, and recording artist who is best known for taking recordings of radio waves from far-away galaxies and turning them into music. I was listening to it the other day whilst driving over the Remutaka Hills and it sounded mind-blowing. It’s been a long-time coming, but I had to include it in the show.

 

Fans of the arch-drude might be interested to learn that a 6th installment of Cope’s Notes has just been released which delves deep into the making of this most notorious of albums. It includes 40-plus minutes of rare demos, versions and unreleased music, and a 48-page booklet featuring handwritten lyrics and rare photos and is available here just in case this is the sort of thing that makes you unfeasibly excited.

 ALAN BLACK     ADVENTURE THROUGH INNER SPACE (excerpt)

 A final visit with Alan Black to our adventure through inner space. The snowflake melts, although that sentence probably means something entirely different these days.

Facebook

 

 

MIND DE-CODER 111

MIND DE-CODER 111

To listen to the show just scroll to the bottom of the page

“LSD is a psychedelic drug which occasionally causes psychotic behavior in people who have NOT taken it.”

                                                   Timothy Leary

DRUID FLUIDS     OUT OF PHASE

Druids Fluids is essentially songwriter, singer and multi-instrumentalist Jamie Andrew who records at home but takes on a band to tour the music he creates in the studio, which seems to happen a lot in Australia. What began as a homage to the Floyd/Hendrix/Beatles influences that inspired his sound has grown and matured to a feast of soundscapes flavoured with a melange of jazz, pop and exotic ingredients. Out Of Phase is taken from his debut album THEN, NOW, AGAIN AND AGAIN, released last year - it has the sort of celebratory feel one associates with Donovan tripping on a stroll along Goodge Street on a sunny morning while he’s putting together the component parts of Sunshine Superman in his head. 

THE TWILIGHTS     PATERNOSTER ROW

This is the sort of track that makes you think: Yes, this is what I mean by psychedelic music. It’s like this, with bells and whistles, and you wouldn’t be wrong. This is taken from their debut album ONCE UPON A TWILIGHT, released in 1968, essentially a soundtrack to what was intended to be a collection of songs recorded for a TV show in the nature of The Monkees starring the band. Sadly it was not to be, but TV's loss is our gain. This is truly the business.

BLUES MAGOOS     SYBIL GREEN (OF THE INBETWEEN)

It’s ironic that the Blues Magoos most psychedelic album was the one with the most prosaic title. BASIC BLUES MAGOOS, released in 1968, was released as a riposte to the record company that had forced them to release their previous two albums under the titles PSYCHEDELIC LOLLIPOP and ELECTRIC COMIC BOOK thus earning the opprobrium of their critics who accused them of taking psychedelic rock and turning it into something that could be sold to teenyboppers. Harsh words. BASIC BLUES MAGOOS, mostly recorded at home in the house where the band were living, is a record very much made on its own terms and contains most of the group’s best recordings. The breezy psychedelia of Sybil Green (Of The Inbetween) is based on a clairvoyant woman who came to check out the supernatural phenomena supposedly going on in the house.

THE FIRST EDITION     JUST DROPPED IN (TO SEE WHAT CONDITION MY CONDITION WAS IN)

Who knew? The First Edition (a band I know next to nothing about, it must be said) was fronted by Kenny Rogers - in fact, there was a point in the seventies when that’s what they were known as: Kenny Rogers and The First Edition - but in 1968, when they released JUST DROPPED IN (TO SEE WHAT CONDITION MY CONDITION WAS IN, it was just The First Edition, and that’s Glenn Campbell on backward guitar for the intro, by the way. A quick bit of research reveals that everyone knew this but me. Prior to this, Rogers had been in the mid-sixties folk group The New Christy Minstrels, but in 1967 he jumped ship, taking most of the group with him, grew his hair long and threw himself into the counter culture, playing  a mixture of rock, country and psychedelic pop to an audience that came to know him as Hippie Kenny. Previously recorded by Jerry Lee Lewis on his 1967 album SOUL MY WAY, Roger’s gave the song a psychedelic edge that gave him his first hit. The Gambler was 10 years away, but the story begins here.

THE GALAXIES IV     DON’T LOSE YOUR MIND

Great things were anticipated for The Galaxies IV. Formed in 1962, they were even granted their own ‘Galaxies IV Day’ at the New York World’s Fair in 1965 (and presented with a plaque to boot), the same year they also won the First Annual Rock ‘n Roll Olympics in New Jersey. In 1967 they released Don’t Lose Your Mind, a galvanising slice of insistent acid punk with spacey sound effects, a trippy lead guitar break, and a suitably freaked out conclusion that still has the ability to produce goosebumps. The record picked up airplay but disaster struck when a strike at the pressing plant meant that the 45 was unavailable in stores. After that, they morphed into Alexander Rabbit, who were booked to play at Woodstock, but their manager cancelled the appearance (sigh).

LOCOMOTIVE     MR ARMAGEDDON

The Locomotive were very much a band in search of a direction. Formed in 1965, they spent three years plugging away on the UK's live jazz scene circuit, but in 1968 they released Rudi’s In Love, a bone fide ska song that became their first big hit. Come 1969 they’d discovered psychedelia, arguably a bit too late, but there’s no denying that Mr Armageddon, the lead single from their only album, WE ARE EVERYTHING YOU SEE, is thunderingly psychedelic, eschewing guitars for a heavy Hammond workout combined with the echoey brass chorus of saxophone and trumpet, making for a wonderful combination.

PAPER BLITZ TISSUE     BOY MEETS GIRL

The Paper Blitz Tissue were a short-lived London band who released just the one single, the electrifyingly psychedelic Boy Meets Girl, in 1967, but what a single it was - all squealing guitars, crunching percussion, an ominous and tuneful melody. It should have been a hit, but all to no avail. It isn’t known why the band never released more material. It is possible that more music does exist, as the band supplied some tracks for a December 1967 BBC television program called Death of a Private, writing the music with TV theme composer Ron Grainer (responsible for the classic Doctor Who theme and The Prisoner). In fact, Boy Meets Girl was written as a TV theme itself, but that show doesn’t seem to have reached the light of day. Still, if you’re going to be known for one track…

SOFT HEARTED SCIENTISTS     COMET’S TALE

New material from The Soft Hearted Scientists is always welcome in these here parts, even if it is, in effect, 17 years old. A short while ago the band released THE WHIRLING WORLD’S SESSIONS EP, three tracks held over from their 2007 release and debut album proper, TAKE TIME TO WONDER IN A WHIRLING WORLD. Comets Tail is like a psychedelic Pulp with added recorders and Beach Boys vocals, and will keep us going until their next album release. There may even be a singles album in the pipeline to look forward to. 

BID     REACH FOR YOUR GUN

In 1986, for reasons best known to himself, Bid briefly parted ways with The Monochrome Set, or perhaps The Monochrome Set split up - there was no social media in those days, and if the music press had anything to say about it at the time I may have missed it. All I know is, one minute I’m lamenting the passing of one of my favourite bands, and the next minute I’m racing down to the record shops on my trusty Raleigh Grand Prix to secure my copy of Bid’s solo single, Reach For Your Gun, which, upon closer inspection, appears to have been recorded by The Monochrome Set in all but name. Anyway, I loved it then, and I love it still.

VANISHING TWIN     LAZY GARDEN

Vanishing Twin furthers their exploration of decidedly experimental territories with their latest release, AFTERNOON X. Now four albums in, the band has refined a hypnotic sound that sits at the juncture of minimalism, kosmische, post-punk, and dream-laden, psychedelic pop, featuring eight fluttering abstractions, culled, collaged, and built upon from a vast constellation of instruments, samples, and unclaimed sources - boat motors, bicycle wheels, and radio static abound. Lazy Garden revels in a hauntological psychedelic avant-gardism that meanders through a narcotic dreamworld that disorientates as much as it enchants.

BEAUTIFY JUNKYARDS     VERDE PINO

Frustrated by the limited opportunities to play live post-pandemic, Beautify Junkyards produced a live performance film in late 2021 entitled ‘Cosmorama Moving Images’. Two of the tracks from the movie were selected for release as a digital single in 2022. The title track is a cover of Nuno Rodrigues’ beautiful 1971 song, Verde Pino, released a single by the singer Daphne. It has elements of Fairport Convention and Incredible String Band but Beautify Junkyards have made it their own - it also features the debut of their new singer Martinez.

EMILE     CIRCLES

SPIRIT is the second album by Danish-French Emile, otherwise known as him from the acid rock band The Sonic Dawn. Backed by a small ensemble of selected musicians and blackbirds singing the sun down, the album reflects a cosmic consciousness, simply marveling at existence as it is. Circles, in particular, ebbs and flows like the passing of time. Gorgeously trippy.

EMMA ANDERSON     INTER LIGHT

Iridescent loveliness from Emma Anderson, founding member of shoegaze icons Lush, who, feeling a little disillusioned after their 2016 reunion came to an abrupt end, was left with a handful songs and bits of music originally intended for the band which she finally found a home for on her debut solo album PEARLIES, released last year. The music, as you might expect, owes something to that classic Lush sound - it’s rich in dreamy atmospherics, elegant and hypnotic, but Anderson also plays around with psych and folk textures, and, as is the case with Inter Light, the vintage keyboard sounds bring a light hauntological touch to the goings on. Altogether delightful. 

PNEUMATIC TUBES     THE BIG DEEP

Pneumatic Tubes (could there be a more hauntologically resonant name?) is the nom de plume by which multi-instrumentalist Jesse Chandler (keyboard & woodwinds player for the bands Midlake and Mercury Rev) releases his solo albums into the world. The Big Deep is taken from his album A LETTER FROM TREETOPS, a paean to the wild landscapes of the Adirondacks and Catskills of Upstate New York where he grew up. (TreeTops is the name of a summer camp, fondly remembered by several generations of the Chandler family.) It’s a kind of American Kosmiche Music, mystical and elegiac, packaged and presented with the library-imbued warmth one expects from a Ghost Box release. Sun-dappled, to say the least.

QUEEN ELIZABETH     ACROSS THE FROZEN LAKES OF STARRE

For his first release of the year (I expect this is the first of many, he appears to be emitting again), Julian Cope, for it is he, has returned to his Queen Elizabeth moniker, the divisively experimental project on which he collaborates with multi-instrumentalist Thighpaulsandra. THE CORPSE OF QUEEN ELIZABETH is the quintessential release, awash with cosmic synthesizers, topographic musicscapes, and archaeosonics - not for all moods, but for every mood. I think Across the Frozen Lakes of Starre, may have been held back from a previous release, because a colossal 36 minute version appears on Thighpaulsandra's I, THIGHPAULSANDRA, released in 2001. This should in no way detract from just how tripped out this version is, however. Possibly not for everyone.

THE COLLECTORS     WHAT IS LOVE

A lovely bit of psychedelic whimsy from Canada’s Collectors, taken from their eponymous album, released in 1968. Being from Canada, and not LA or San Francisco, the group remain a little underappreciated in your psychedelic circles, but their debut album is very much at home to the likes of Barclay James Harvest doing their best Moody Blues impression. None of this is to denigrate it too much - What Is Love is as dreamy as it gets, and the band’s way with a keyboard earned them a spot as session musicians on The Electric Prunes album MASS IN F MINOR. The band also incorporated harpsichords, Gregorian chants as well as jazz and folk into their style and the addition of the myriad wind instruments prognosticated many of the progressive rock soundscapes that would emerge in the 70s, none of which can be fairly laid at their door.

DREAM DIVISION     ODYSSEY

Dream Division is Tom Mcdowell, a musician who works in the world of analog synths. His dark interstellar grooves and sonic soundscapes explore the sort of ideas found in both classic 70s horror scores as well as the deep space drifts of Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, and Vangelis. His most recent album, LUMARIAN, released on his own brilliant Library of The Occult label last year, is an invitation to an electronic odyssey - the album's expansive synth soundscapes stretch out like vast, unexplored galaxies, McDowell's synthesisers manifesting otherworldly textures and pulsating rhythms which unfold like the chapter of a lost dystopian science fiction novel. On Odyssey, he is joined by Australian saxophonist Jorja Chalmers whose evocative playing creates a harmonious convergence of the traditional and the futuristic, which is both familiar and alien at the same time.

PAPERNUT CAMBRIDGE     SPIRIT MAZE (PHASED MIX)

Papernut Cambridge is a highly conceptual band put together by Ian Button, one-time guitarist in Death in Vegas (he played the guitar on the brilliant Dirge, so even if he’d never played another note in his life, his place in music history is secure as far as I’m concerned), named after a band whose name he saw on a gig poster during a particularly vivid dream he had in the 90s. It clearly had an effect. They trade in a sort of quintessential Englishness that owes something to The Kinks’ VILLAGE GREEN PRESERVATION SOCIETY, but this groovy phased mix of Spirit Maze is one of the bonus tracks made available to those ardent fans who bought the limited edition 10” vinyl recording MELLOTRON PHASE: VOL 2, an instrumental library album released in 2018 for Ravenwood Music Ltd., of which only 250 copies were pressed, so you might not have come across it before.

POPOL VUH     BE IN LOVE

The almost diaphonously lovely Be In Love was originally released as a solo single by Korean vocalist Djon Yun in 1972. I’m not sure whether Popol Vuh provided the glorious instrumentation for the single, but she sang with the band on many of their greatest recordings (the sublime HOSIANNA MANTRA, for example) so I’m pretty certain that they did, and it was included as a bonus track on the 2004 re-release of 1973’s SELIGPREISUNG, the band’s fourth album. The title is the German name for the Beatitudes, from Christ's Sermon on the Mount, and features original lyrics from the Gospel of Matthew, revised by Florian Fricke. Don’t let that put you off, though - this is highly spiritual music of an almost celestial order, pulsing, cosmic and meditative.

ALAN BLACK    MELTED INTO THIN AIR

Zen philosopher Alan Watts provides the ruminative meditations on this track, taken from the album THE SEA - ALAN WATTS, produced by screenwriter and mash-up artist Alan Black in 2014 as part of a cycle of albums inspired by, well, the sea, I suppose. The component parts include Alan Watts discussing the mythology of hinduism over the ambient piece Ancient Campfire by Norweigan electronic composer Geir Aule Jenssen, who records as Biosphere, Bells: Tolling of the Knell by The Kronos Quartet and Song to the Great Tibetan Yogis by the Tibetan Lama Karta, just in case you were wondering. Alan Black creates, or rather created, for he downed tools in 2019, soundscapes for the mind to lose itself in. All of his albums are available to download free from here.They make for a highly immersive listen.

SAMUEL BARBER     AGNUS DEI

The entirely transcendental Agnus Dei, composed by Samuel Barber in 1967, as a choral arrangement of his own Adagio for Strings which he’d written in 1936. Mournful and passionate, it’s possibly one of the most recognisable pieces of classical music in the world, but nonetheless enthralling for all that. Performed here by The Choir of New College, Oxford, conducted by Edward Higginbottom, if that’s worth anything to you, from the album AGNUS DEI - MUSIC OF INNER HARMONY, recorded in 2009. The other day I was thinking that the only other bit of music that I own that even comes close to stirring me as much as this is The Lonely Surfer by Jack Nitzsche, but I think I was high at the time.

THE BLUES MAGOOS     ACCIDENTAL MEDITATION

Accidental Meditation, the second track from THE BASIC BLUES MAGOOS on this evening’s show, displays a restrained psychedelic sensitivity that captures the whole vibe of the second half of the show. Not bad for a band more at home to their snarling garage-punk roots.

DEEP PURPLE     HEY JOE

For their debut album, SHADES OF DEEP PURPLE, released in 1968, the nascent Deep Purple bring a hitherto unsuspected Boléro dimension to the rock classic by inserting parts taken from the Miller's Dance, suite no. 2, part 2 of the ballet EL SOMBRERO DE TRES PICOS by Manuel de Falla into the mix, on an album that’s otherwise overlooked by your fans of Deep Purple.

Facebook