MIND DE-CODER 111
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“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.
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