MIND DE-CODER 96

MIND DE-CODER 96

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

The true voyage of discovery is not so much in seeking new landscapes as in having new eyes

                                  Marcel Proust

 

LA DÜSSELDORF     VÖGEL

Not so much a track as one minute and thirty seconds or so of relaxing birdsong from the album VIVA, released in 1978 by La Düsseldorf, Klaus Dinger’s relatively more successful post-Neu! outfit, on an essential album in your Krautrock circles otherwise characterised by washed-out synthesizers, swirling guitar work and Dinger's trademark motorik rhythms.   

THE KUNDALINI GENIE     MANTRA

The swirling, heavy vibes of the it’s-all-in-the-title Mantra is taken from the album 11:11, the fourth studio album from Glasgow’s experimental psych-rockers The Kundalini Genie, released earlier this year. The album features transcendental sitar, droning hypnotic fuzz rock, 60’s British Invasion inspired melodies, dreamy, spaced-out soundscapes and blissed-out melodies. It’s good – I like it.

THE LEFT BANKE     THERE’S GONNA BE A STORM

      

By the time American baroque-pop band The Left Banke released their second album, their seventeen-year-old wunderkind songwriter and pianist Michael Brown – responsible for the exquisite Pretty Ballerina - had long gone, and taken his producer and arranger dad with him. It turns out that the remaining trio had a few tricks of their own up their sleeve, though, and in 1968 released THE LEFT BANKE TOO, an adventurous and psychedelically informed album which included the intoxicating There’s Gonna Be A Storm. (Two songs on the album feature backing vocals from one Steve Tallarico, who several years later would tie a scarf to his mike stand, change his name to Steven Tyler, and become the lead singer with Aerosmith – fact fans.)

PAPER GARDEN     A DAY

Paper Garden were a New York outfit whose only album, the eponymously titled PAPER GARDEN, released in 1968, was very much influenced by The Beatles’ REVOLVER and The Zombies’ ODESSEY AND ORACLE, with just a touch of SGT PEPPERS’ thrown in for its more out-there embellishments – it is, then, a very fine psychedelic release in its own right, if not entirely original in its scope. The elaborately arranged and entirely tripped-out A Day demonstrates just how ambitious the band were but, despite some good reviews, the album failed to find a home and the band split in 1970.

THE WOLFGANG DAUNER QUINTET     A DAY IN THE LIFE

An absolute bonkers cover of The Beatles’ A Day In The Life (they even miss out Paul's bit) from the Wolfgang Dauner release, THE OIMELS. Wolfgang Dauner, of course, was that rarest of things, an internationally renowned German jazz musician, but he was also freewheelingly experimental and unafraid to branch out into psychedelia and nascent krautrock inventiveness. Alongside his free-jazz explorations, Dauner also composed music for films, radio and television broadcasts, as well as knocking out a children’s opera, but for fans of your psychedelia, it’s his 1969 release with the Wolfgang Dauner Quintet that should really invite your interest.

THE DREAM     THE DOTING KING

The Doting King positively ripples with waves of lysergic ambience. Released in 1968, this was just one of three singles released by The Dream. The little-known Dutch band were forever doomed to be the psychedelic bridesmaid - never the tripped-out bride - opening for the likes of Pink Floyd, The Kinks and even Steppenwolf, but somehow eluding a success of their own.

PINK FLOYD     JULIA DREAM

The almost diaphanously lovely Julia Dream, b-side to the much unloved It Would Be So Nice, released in 1968, and the first track to be sung by Syd’s replacement David Gilmour. It's a haunting song, airy and mysterious, augmented by Rick Wright’s ambient mellotron; but with Syd’s departure, the band had lost its way and was searching for a way forward. This track wasn’t particularly it, but it’s by far one of the loveliest they ever recorded.

THE AVANT-GARDE     YELLOW BEADS

Yellow Beads, released in 1967, was little more than a cynical cash-in on the whole flower children hippie-vibe (à la Scott Mc Kenzie’s rather more famous paean to San Francisco) by the duo Elkin Fowler – who would go onto work with Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen – and Chuck Woolery – who would go on to find fame as a game-show host. Despite the fact that there’s nothing particularly avant-garde about their sound, and that the duo played little part in the counter-culture they professed to celebrate, the single has enough psychedelic embellishments to make you sit up and take notice, should it ever be playing on a transistor radio near you.

ZWEISTEIN     ORGAN DREAMS (A VERY SIMPLE SONG)

Whereas Zweistein were very much the real deal, and their 1969 album, TRIP, FLIP OUT, MEDITATION is pretty much the holy grail of Krautrock avant-garde releases. In fairness, you’d only ever want to listen to it once, consisting, as it does, of a series of soundscapes created out of collaged sounds, home-built instruments, manipulated noises and organic stylistic hypnotic episodes which essentially escape classification. Spread over a  triple album it’s something of a challenging listen that demonstrates just how far out the counter-culture was actually willing to go in the late 60s. Organ Dreams, which closes side two, is one of the more pleasant tracks on an album of astounding sonic experimentation.

THE ROLLING STONES     SING THIS ALL TOGETHER

Over the years I’ve come to completely re-evaluate THEIR SATANIC MAJESTIES REQUEST and now find it enormously enjoyable. Yes, it’s the band playing at being The Beatles (although never quite reaching Pepperland), and yes, they’d lost their way somewhat, but in the spirit of 1967, and in spite of, or possibly because of, the band’s travails during that momentous year, it remains something of a statement – unfocussed, fey and experimental, but definitely a statement - and, anyway, I’ve always been a fan of psychedelic excess. Sing This All Together probably isn’t as half as playful as they no doubt thought it was, but it always puts a smile on my face. John and Paul sing along too. I suffer from profound anemoia when it comes to 1967 - I suppose it comes from being only two at the time and being brought up on a council estate in Essex where the sixties never happened.  

I follow it with Julius Fučík’s unintentional screamer march Entry Of The Gladiators taken from the soundtrack to the ROLLING STONES ROCK AND ROLL CIRCUS because I’m also a fan of Easter eggs, although I’m not entirely sure that it is an Easter egg if you have to point it out…

KEITH SEATMAN    ON THE PIER AND DOWN TO THE SEA

…but it does lend itself rather nicely to this track by Keith Seatman, whose music is an anachronistically repurposed assemblage of sounds, melodies and technologies plundered from different time zones. His most recent album, TIME TO DREAM BUT NEVER SEEN, released earlier this year, is an evocative sound collage, skillfully assembled to bring sounds from the past into the present, finding a new purpose for them as part of a historical narrative. The woozy, amusement arcade din of On The Pier And Down To The Sea is bad-trip psychedelia shot through with wistful and whimsical melodies, filtered through the crumbling, half-remembered memories of bank holiday day trips to Margate.

PAUL WELLER    FOURTH DIMENSION

Paul Weller is, I presume, rapidly, and, no doubt, reluctantly, turning into a national treasure. So be it. His current release, ON SUNSET, plays with a sonic palette which retains his passion for soulful balladry and pastoral vibes but finds space for disco, field recordings, electronic abstraction, G-Funk, and hauntological experimentation – in the case of Fourth Dimension, more or less all in the same track. Elsewhere, the psychedelic production takes in folk, music hall, baroque pop, and house beats in a way that ought to stir the heart of any fifty-five year- old Jam fan who’s still able to give The Style Council’s difficult fifth album the occasional airing. (That would be me, then.)

HELIOCENTRICS     PEOPLE WAKE UP!

There’s just a touch of the Cinematic Orchestra about this track, but its trip-hop beats are merely part of an epic odyssey that eventually takes in funk, jazz (but not jazz-funk, you’ll be relieved to hear), psychedelia, electronica, and avant-garde noodlings presented with the disorienting asymmetry of Sun Ra, the cinematic scope of Ennio Morricone, the sublime fusion of David Axelrod, Pierre Henry’s turned-on musique concrète, and Can’s beat-heavy Krautrock. Taken from their current release, THE INFINITY OF NOW, album closer People Wake Up! is psychedelia at its most psychedeliadelica-est.

THE BYRDS     MIND GARDEN

David Crosby’s Mind Garden, taken from The Byrds’ 1967 release, YOUNGER THAN YESTERDAY, was much unloved by the rest of the band (and fans alike) but I’ve always had a soft spot for it – it’s a truly psychedelic piece, lacking all rhyme and rhythm (McGuinn’s pet peeve with the piece, truth be told) but featuring, instead, backward guitars, an atonal raga rock ambience and, hey, Crosby’s message of openness in the face of life’s slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Some people think it betrays a certain drug-addled self-indulgence, but by any standard, and like it or not, this is The Byrds at their most questing and experimental and my love for the band remains unabashed.

FRANK HUNTER AND HIS ORCHESTRA     MIST OF GORONGOZA

An exotic indulgence of my own – the ravishing Mist Of Gorongoza, taken from big-band trombonist Frank Hunter’s only dip into the limpid pool of exotica, 1959’s WHITE GODDESS, is a sultry combination of enchanted jungle exotica and its weirdly attendant sub-genre, space-lounge music. Although never regarded as one of the giants of the genre, Hunter’s sole album, which incorporates the ondioline, wordless vocals, chromatic bongos, Chinese bells and the almost certainly made-up buzzimba, is highly regarded by fans of your exotica and a much-sought-after item by collectors of this sort of thing.

Things begin to get messed up here as I attempt to create a sort of sonic melange of sounds that takes in a number of tracks by several artists associated with your avant-garde circles. These include…

CLAUDIO ROCCHI    IL RAMI E GLI ARMONICE

Quite. You can find Il Rami E Gli Armonice (or The Branches And The Harmonics, Italian translation fans) on the aptly titled 1976 release SUONI DI FRONTIERA (or FRONTIER SOUNDS) by Italian avant-garde composer Claudio Rocchi. It sounds like the sound-track to a psychedelic dream sequence - a collection of electronic sound sketches comprised of pulsing, rhythmic tones, sheets of pure abstraction, fragments of voice and environmental sound, captured and spun wild by tape loops and space-age sounds. Not for the mildly curious, I suspect.

JUSTIN HOPPER     INTERMISSION ANNOUNCEMENT

Anglophile Justin Hopper is an American writer whose work explores the intersection of landscape, memory, and myth through non-fiction, poetry, site-specific writing and audio pieces. He most recently tops and tails the Ghost Box release, INTERMISSION, a digital compilation of entirely new work from regular members of the label’s roster and some special guests. It’s a gentle flow of nostalgic ambient and twee-tronic gestures, comprised of preview tracks from forthcoming releases and material especially recorded for the compilation during the global lockdown. Ghost Box releases never have much to say about quotidian reality but these responses to the situation have seeped through from the universe next door. Hopper’s narration, which appears throughout the album’s tracks, encourages us to string together the gaps or pauses in collective cultural memory and tie them into a meditative narrative for downtimes like the lockdown.

While that was playing I included a few more moments from Zweistein and Claudio Rocchi, as well as Grace Slick’s isolated vocals for Jefferson Airplane’s White Rabbit because it seemed like such a good idea at the time (and still does), and then…

A.R. LUCIANI   BOMBARDMENT

Bombardment is taken from the album ELETTROENCEFALOGRAMMA by obscure Italian composer A.R. Luciani, an artist who operated and, I believe, continues to operate, on the extreme outer limits of musical endeavor. Drawn from original tapes recorded during the 1970s, the album, released last year, spans the heyday of Luciani’s work in which he embraced the possibilities of new music at the dawn of an unprecedented sonic epoch, as it were. It’s something of an acquired taste, then, and not, it turns out, one you’d wish to play at a dinner party, say, unless you were keen to get rid of your guests before the dessert arrives.  

P-FUNK ALL-STARS     LOST DOG (MIX 1)

Outrageously funky and tripped-out vibes from George Clinton’s Parliament-Funkadelic/P-Funk All-Stars which, in this instance, features a collaboration with GIVE OUT BUT DON’T GIVE UP-era Primal Scream - it features the sadly late Denise Johnson on vocals. Lost Dog (Mix 1) is taken from the POLICE DOGGY EP, released 1995, but was only ever made available in Japan. I came across it for the first time last week and can’t keep from playing it. Marvellous.

THE ORB     ITAL ORB (TOO BLESSED TO BE STRESSED MIX)

The Orb’s most recent release, ABOLITION OF THE ROYAL FAMILIA, sees Alex Paterson et al. pay tribute to the golden age of ambient house whilst taking a dig at the royal family’s historical endorsement of the East India Company’s role in the opium trade. It sounds like it shouldn’t work but, as always, their playful use of samples combined with the sort of reggae-influenced ambient-house influences that they more or less invented manages to celebrate the last 30 years of electronic music and remain relevant. Ital Orb (Too Blessed To Be Stressed Mix) begins with a news item about the effect of “killer dope” on a baby squirrel before taking a voyage off into inner space.

P-FUNK ALL-STARS     LOST DOG (MIX 2)

I couldn’t decide which version I liked most, so decided to include both. This version enjoys a dubbed-up quality that sits rather nicely with The Orb.

THE ORB     AFROS, AFGHANS AND ANGELS IN DUB (HOODIE WOOD MIX)

This track is taken from the deluxe version of the album which takes the original mixes and dubs them up even further. Afros, Afghans And Angels In Dub (Hoodie Wood Mix) glides off into the inner realms, a beautiful ambient piece that comes across as equal parts Pink Floyd’s Shine On You Crazy Diamond and Eno’s An Ending (Ascent).

SONORA CASINO     ASTRONAUTAS Y MERCURIO

Released in 1972, Sonora Casino's TROMPETEROS was essentially just the sort of South American easy listening album that traded in the classic tropical sounds of cha cha cha, bolero, guaracha and, on occasions, boogaloo before finding its way to a charity shop near you, but something must have been in the water for the album’s closing track, because the almost magical Astronautas Y Mercurio is a cosmic descarga full of electronic effects, filtered voices, and fierce guitars with wah-wah and raw distortion turned up to 11 that’s closer to the true sound of psychedelia than anything the band had ever attempted before. There’s certainly nothing else like it on the album – in truth, there’s nothing else like it anywhere. Truly mind-blowing.

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MIND DE-CODER 9

                                   MIND DE-CODER 9

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

"But what if tomorrow never knows? It didn’t today".

FLYING WHITE DOTS     COLOSSAL INTRO

Isn't it, though? Taken from his second album STARING AT THE SKY, released in 2007, an all-star psychedelic mash-up album, available for free download here 

PAUL GIOVANNI AND MAGNET     CORN RIGGS

I was probably being a bit too clever here, but if you're not trying to be clever, then why bother? What I did was play two versions of Corn Riggs at the same time; the first from the original version of THE WICKER MAN soundtrack, released in 1998, which, because the original master tapes had gone missing, was lifted directly from the film itself, complete with the film's soundtrack; and a second version of the song taken from the recently re-issued 2002 CD of the film’s soundtrack taken from the recently discovered master tapes, found, bizarrely enough, within cult-film maker Roger Corman's private collection of film prints. I think, actually, the experiment works, although strictly speaking it was more of an interesting accident brought about by my trying to figure out which version I ultimately prefer. Turns out I like them both equally, which is why I jiggered about with them and used them both.

THE ELECTRIC PRUNES     I HAD TOO MUCH TO DREAM (LAST NIGHT)

A stone-cold psychedelic classic from a band who never claimed to be a psychedelic act; and it's true that their sound was not so much psychedelic than a sonic outburst of pure psych. The Electric Prunes, a joke name that stuck, grew from an early garage band called The Sanctions - I had Too Much To Dream (Last Night), released in 1966, with all its distorted guitars and oscillating reverb, has all the primitive buzz of a garage band, a harder sound that would soon be out of place in the fluffier summer of love that was to follow shortly, which is why this song was pretty much their only hit. It also featured on their debut album, THE ELECTRIC PRUNES: I HAD TOO MUCH TO DREAM (LAST NIGHT), released in 1967.

RUPERT'S PEOPLE     PROLOGUE TO A MAGIC WORLD

Rupert's People have a lineage that's so complicated that at one point it existed as a virtual band, in name only, after the manager fired the whole group but kept the name. Prologue To A Magic World, released in 1967, was one of only three singles the many line-up's of the band were able to produce, and a shameless cash-in on the then English psychedelic vogue for referencing whimsical Victorian literature - in the case, Alice In Wonderland.  They never released an album in their lifetime, but a collection of their singles, and those of related bands that seem to have consisted of Rupert's People under different names (don't ask), is now available as THE MAGIC WORLD OF RUPERT'S PEOPLE, released in 2001.

BROADCAST AND THE FOCUS GROUP     THE BE COLONY

Taken from the hauntological classic BROADCAST AND THE FOCUS GROUP INVESTIGATE WITCH CULTS OF THE RADIO AGE, released in 2009, an album so trippy, so dislocated, so laced in wonder and intrigue, that it almost makes Mind De-Coder redundant (almost).  Broadcast and The Focus Group have produced an album of gurgling synthesizers, ringing chimes, Radiophonic echoes, deranged melodies, sudden burst of funky drumming, wandering woodwind, and hauntological reel-to-reel experimentation, all wrapped up with Broadcast's Trish Keenan dead-pan nursery rhyme vocals. Haunting, bewildering and yet strangely familiar, as if half-remembered from a dream. I love it.

ISOBEL CAMBELL     MILK WHITE SHEETS

See, I'm a sucker for a cello; make it sound faintly medieval and I'm sold. Isobel Campbell’s 2006 album MILK WHITE SHEETS is almost weightless in its simplicity, drawing on an English folk tradition that at times, like in this track, borders on the ethereal. Quite lovely.

SHELAGH McDONALD    LIZ'S SONG

Shelagh McDonald's story has a touch of the mythic about it. Following the release of her second album, STARGAZER, released in 1971, from which the evocative Liz's Song is taken, Shelagh McDonald, all set to be the next Sandy Denny, mysteriously disappears for 34 years, only to resurface in 2005 after reading a Scottish Daily Mail story about her musical legacy and unsolved disappearance. It seems her very first acid trip was a life-changing nightmare that lasted for over a month leaving her a scared, paranoid, fragile and mostly broken, emotional wreck - she retreated to Scotland where she slowly mended herself, only to discover she could no longer sing. She married a local bookseller and began a nomadic existence, often living in tents in the Scottish Highlands, never to record again. If that's not the stuff of legend then I don't know what is.

OASIS     FALLING DOWN (A MONSTROUS PSYCHEDELIC BUBBLE EXPLODING IN YOUR MIND REMIX)

Despite not being what you'd call a huge fan of Oasis, I have been looking forward to playing this; all 22 minutes of it. This is Amorphous Androgynous creating a loved-up psychedelic wig-out of the 2008 single by Oasis, featuring singing children, sitars and kitchen sinks. Pretty much does was it says on the label. 

SOFT HEARTED SCIENTISTS     GARDEN SONG

The third album from the Soft Hearted Scientists is actually a collection of 16 demos that the band thought too good not to release. One might wonder why, if they liked them so much, they didn't record them properly (the band had moved on from the songs, apparently, but the songs hadn't moved on from them and simply wouldn't go away), but in actual fact, the songs on SCARECROW SMILE: HOME DEMOS, VOL. 1, released in 2008, work very well without any adornishments. Garden Song works as a sanctuary in a restless world and is also just a little bit spooky. 

DAMON ALBARN     PRAYER

On which Damon goes all pastoral and folky on this, the recently released DR. DEE, 18 songs inspired by the life of John Dee, mathematician, polymath, astrologer, alchemist, spymaster and adviser to Queen Elizabeth I. It’s a lovely affair, mostly comprised of early English choral work and instrumentation, with some West African and renaissance sounds thrown in for good measure.

THE MONOCHROME SET     IN LOVE, CANCER?

If you’re a fan of cheesy 60’s spy flicks like Our Man Flint, or The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (United Network Command for Law Enforcement, by the way), then you’ll know that, inevitably, there’d be a fight scene in some swinging nightclub packed with groovy teenagers politely dancing to some switched on band who, crucially, never stop playing as the fight erupts and chairs fly through the air, often followed by the James Coburn/Napolean Solo type hero who, following a sock squarely to the chin, would crash into a table, which would then collapse under him causing said groovy teenagers to scatter but not actually stop dancing, which the hero would then shake off, without a mark on him, before returning to the fray. You know the sort I mean – well, The Monochrome Set reminds me of that band (not necessarily with this track, but the observation still holds true). They actually grew out of punk, but were never actually embraced by that audience who thought them too arch and clever. Sadly they never received much of an audience from anyone else either but went on to release five cult albums during the early eighties that would go on to influence bands like The Smiths and Franz Ferdinand, of course. I loved them and for years modeled my look on lead singer, Bid – all safari suits and smoking jackets.

 In Love, Cancer? can be found on their second album, LOVE ZOMBIES, released in 1980. They’ve reformed several times and even released an album a couple of years ago, but if you want to check them out, and you should, you really need to hear those first albums – they’re great, and very embraceable.

SIR PSYCH     HELLO ECHO (PART ONE)

Sir Psych (or Martin Nunez, when his mum calls him in for dinner) is one half of psychedelic rockers The Smoking Trees, an LA based duo with a flair for poppy garage psych.  Hello Echo is taken from Sir Psych’s second solo album, HELLO ECHO, released earlier this year as a download album from his site here where you can download it for free – it’s basically the sound of someone experimenting with echo and reverb, but in your psychedelic circles, this sort of thing is to be applauded and should happen more often.

AGITATION FREE    YOU PLAY FOR US TODAY/ SAHARA CITY (excerpt)

One of your lesser known krautrock groups, but none the worse for that, Agitation Free’s debut album, MALESCH, released 1972, is a near perfect representation of the band’s sound – an intricate musical blend of free jazz, psychedelia and ‘found’ recordings made in Egypt and Lebanon from which they derived much of their inspiration.  You Play For Us Today and Sahara City are the opening two tracks from the album but I’ve only included an excerpt from Sahara City, because it meanders somewhat in the middle but, crucially, that’s exactly what I needed it to do in this instance.

NEU!     HALLOGALLO

Hallogallo, opening side 1 of Neu!’s debut album, NEU!, released in 1971, gave krautrock its motorifik heart, and, as Julian Cope notes in his trusty Krautrockampler, even if Neu! had split up right after this track they would have still changed rock ‘n’ roll for ever. It has no melody, no vocals, nothing to tell you where you are in this seamless piece of music, and yet this riffless groove soars like seagulls on echo-less cliffs. Neu! grew out of an early version of Kraftwerk, you know.

CLUSTER     PLAS

With this, our third Krautrock track this evening, Cluster bring a natural sense of timelessness to music that is released from archaic structures such as bars or beats per minute. Plas is reminiscent of pounding echoes of sound reverberating around the universe, and is taken from their 1972 album CLUSTER II, which may have actually been their fourth album – these things get lost in the mists of time…

CREEDENCE CLEARWATER REVIVAL    RUDE AWAKENING #2

Rude Awakening #2 is taken from Creedence Clearwater Revival's difficult 6th album, 1970's PENDULUM. It is essentially the psychedelic-progressive rock track on an album that sees the group reaching out in challenging new directions, just before inevitably splitting up, and I only use an excerpt of the track (the good bit). 

INSANITY SECT     CHOCKTAW RIDGE

Insanity Sect are one of those bands  who's work appears on those ambient dub type compilation albums that appeared about 20 years ago with names like DUB DOPE, and AMBIENT DUB VOLUME THREE: AQUA from which this track is actually taken. Chocktaw Ridge was released in 1993 and gets included here because I distinctly remember hearing it once under splendidly enhanced circumstances wherein I simply assumed that I was listening to two tracks playing at the same time in different rooms on a broken tape recorder. I can laugh about it now...

MOON WIRING CLUB      TRACK 11

More hauntological going’s-on from the Moon Wiring Club. This track is taken from the bonus disc CLUTCH IT LIKE A GONK (GONK EDITION), released in 2011 and my current go-to album for perfect 1 minute fillers.

JOE BYRD AND THE FIELD HIPPIES     MOONSONG-PELOG

This lovely track is brought to you by Joe Byrd And The Field Hippies, following Joe Byrd’s departure from the United States Of America, a highly experimental, avant-garde psychedelic art-rock band who’s one album was released in 1968. If anything Byrd’s work with the Field Hippies was even more experimental, taking in an extensive use of effects, delays, echoes, backwards vocals, trippy Moog and electronics noodlings mixed with stunning bursts of fuzzed out guitars and acid-damaged lyrics. Moonsong-Pelog is the final part of the opening three-part suite that has otherwise been described as an 11-minute acid trip unto itself and features on the band’s only album, AMERICAN METAPHYSICAL CIRCUS, released in 1969.   

CAN     OSCURA PRIMAVERA

An atypically pretty (and short) track from Can featuring a duet between guitar and wind noises, taken from their recently released triple -CD of forgotten studio jams, THE LOST TAPES, released 2012.

DR. TIMOTHY LEARY     ALL GIRLS ARE YOURS

In many ways the definitive trip album and certainly one that should be listened to at least once by anyone who is seriously inclined towards lysergic exploration, shall we say. Timothy Leary’s album TUNE IN, TURN ON, DROP OUT, released 1967, is a narrated meditational guide over free-form psychedelic rock music which will take you to places inside your head that you have never been to before and to which you may not want to return to again – but you should go at least once. It originally accompanied a documentary film of the same name and the phrase itself, popularized by Leary at the Human Be-In in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, has been misinterpreted to mean ‘Get stoned and abandon all constructive activity’, when, in fact, Leary was suggesting that the purpose of the psychedelic experience, like every great religion of the past, was to seek to find the divinity within and to express this revelation in a life of glorification and the worship of God. An easy mistake to make, though.

THE WITCH AND THE ROBOT     YOU ALREADY KNOW EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT TIME TRAVEL (JUST LOOK AT THE STARS)

The Witch and the Robot are from England's Lake District and their music reflects the kind of surreal thinking and sense of space one develops when you inhabit a mystical landscape that glimmers for miles in every direction. Their debut album, ON SAFARI, released in 2009, is a sublime mix of dark psychedelia, folk, sea shanties (sea shanties!) and spoken word pieces taking in tales of time travel, dead puppeteers, the sea and seeking out the graves of giants.  You Already Know Everything There Is To Know About Time Travel is by no means the most dramatic track on the album but it does conclude the show quite nicely. 

And that would be a bit of the late, great Bill Hicks.

That was Mind De-Coder 9. I thank you.  

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