Tuesday 4 June 2013

MIND DE-CODER 2

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“You who stand, sit, and crawl around and about the floor, about you and above you, on the ceiling – that madness that’s running in color is your brain!
             
  Ken Kesey at The San Francisco State Trips Festival, 1966


ANTHONY REYNOLDS    JUST SO YOU KNOW


A bewitching slice of folk whimsy to start the show – Just So You know appears on the EP THE BEES DREAM OF FLOWERS AND YOUR SUMMER’S MEADOW BREATH,  a companion piece to Welsh artist Reynold’s debut album BRITISH BALLADS, released in 2007. It features Vashti Bunyan on vocals, whose ethereal voice floats like gossamer through Simon  Raymond’s (ex-Cocteau Twins) production. Lovely


DR STRANGELY STRANGE     STRANGELY STRANGE BUT ODDLY NORMAL



More pastoral folk of the hippy-ish variety from Dr Strangely Strange, Ireland’s answer to the Incredible String Band, from their debut album, the Joe Boyd produced KIP OF THE SERENES, released in 1969 and perhaps just a bit more rooted in melody and structure than the group’s flaky Scottish counterparts (I’ve tried and I’ve tried but I just don’t get The Incredible String Band).  


JULY     DANDELION SEEDS



July, more or less quite rightly, are often considered also-rans in psychedelic circles. Returning from the continent in time to find that Pink Floyd had just finished in the Abbey Road studios, they moved straight in and came out with JULY, released in 1968. It fails to capture the giddy heights of PIPER AT THE GATES OF DAWN, but does contain a couple of stone cold classics, Dandelion Seeds being one of them. Just when it seems it's getting into an extended jam, an eerie slow passage is super-imposed over the beat in what is considered, in some circles, as one of the greatest moments in psychedelic history ever.



KOOBAS     BARRICADES


The Koobas were one of the great lost bands of the 60's. They started off all Merseybeat, even got themselves managed by Brian Epstein for a while, but produced nothing that was ever worth jumping up and down about. By 1968 they were ready to call it a day, but before they went managed to produce this sprawling psychedelic monster of a track that can be found on their only album THE KOOBAS, released in 1969. It manages to sound like no other track released in the 60's.


THE LIQUID SOUND COMPANY     SADHANA SIDDHI



This band, which pretty much sound like they say they do, seems to be the side project of John Perez, of doom metal band Solitude Aeturnus. Sadhana Siddhi is taken from their debut album EXPLORING THE PSYCHEDELIC, released 1996, which, like their name suggests, pretty much does what it says on the label. They create huge psychedelic waves of sound that put them somewhere between Acid Mothers Temple and Hendrix’s And the Gods Made Love, from ELECTRIC LADYLAND, in which his guitar seems to melt out of the speakers. Marvellous.


DEUTER     SURAT SHABDA



Enough with the Hindu titles, already – Deuter is one of the lesser known krautrock artists and AUM, released in 1972, from which this track is taken, is a cruelly-underrated part of the canon.  It’s a dark, peaceful, spacy album with a deep tantric feel – all sitar and bongos that’s up there with those tripped out meditative pieces by Ash Ra Tempel.


MELLOW CANDLE     SHEEP SEASON


Acid folk doesn't get any more atmospheric or beautiful than this, but the record buying public disagreed and after releasing just one album in 1972, the very fine SWADDLING SONGS, the group split up. These days, of course, it's considered as something of the holy grail of folk rock albums and you can't buy the album for love nor money. That's what a spiraling two way soaring vocal harmony is supposed to sound like, just in case you wondered.


SYNANTHESIA      PEEK STRANGELY AND WORRIED EVENING



Synanthesia’s only album, simply named SYNANTHESIA, released in 1969, was one of those records that simply got lost as the world left the sixties behind. It was legendarily recorded in two days, live in the studio with no overdubs, and yet remains a quiet joy for those lucky enough to come across it. Like Dr. Strangely Strange, they’re indebted to The Incredible String Band, of course, but Synanthesia are a gentler affair with mostly flute, vibraphone and acoustic guitar accompanying the melodies. Lovely.


THE SOFT HEARTED SCIENTISTS     BROTHER SISTER



This song kills me every time I hear it. I don't know whether it's the children crying when it was time for his brother to move on, or his sister and her cat in San Francisco who he wishes that he saw more often, but this song just stops me in my tracks and puts a big lump in my throat. The fact that it's also a giddy slice of playful Welsh psychedelia also helps - I swear they must put something in their tea over there. You can find it on their debut album UNCANNY TALES FROM THE EVERYDAY UNDERGROWTH, released in 2005, which collected together their first 3 EP's. It's one of my favourite albums ever - I once spent a very agreeable sunny afternoon listening to it on repeat under enhanced circumstances and wrote them a letter straight after telling them how great I thought they were. They even replied, telling me that they thought I was great, too.


ORANGE BICYCLE      A TRIP ON AN ORANGE BICYCLE



Sometimes it's all in the title - A Trip On An Orange Bicycle tells you almost everything you need to know about this track. Released in 1968, from the album ORANGE BICYCLE, before switching onto psychedelia they toured under the name Rob Storm and the Whispers - nuff said.


GO HOME PRODUCTIONS     2000 LIGHT YEARS FROM BOLAN



The only mash-up on tonight's show is taken from Mark Vidler’s second album SPLICED KRISPIES, on which he plays around with his first love, psychedelic music, and TV ads (anyone who's ever heard Wouldn't it Be Nice To Have A Finger Of Fudge won't forget it in a hurry).  2000 Light Years From Bolan (mashing up Marc Bolan with The Rolling Stones, of course), is a track that simply struts around your headphones looking for something to shag and is available as free download here.


GOLDFRAPP     HAPPINESS (BEYOND THE WIZARD'S SLEEVE REMIX)



The fact is, that if you're ever lucky enough to hear this track under euphemistically enhanced circumstances you will appreciate that Alison Goldfrapp has the voice of an angel. I have never heard anything that comes close. It is a pure, exquisite and transcendent delight, and I don't say this lightly; in the hands of Beyond The Wizard's Sleeve you also have beautiful multilayered piece of music to explore. The original (which is not without its own charms), can be found on their album THE SEVENTH TREE, released in 2008. This was the album wherein they discovered a gentle vein of pastoral folk with which to delight their listeners. With their next album they decided to be The Pointer Sisters.


ADRIAN CORKER     ADDERBURY CREATION MYTH/SPRINGTIME



Two tracks from one of the most unusual albums of 2011, Adrian Corker’s  WAY OF THE MORRIS, the soundtrack to a documentary charting the history of Morris dancing in the UK. Corker, of underrated experimental folk types Corker/Conboy takes the rich tradition of British homespun folk music as his starting point, and then, over twenty-two tracks, explores a landscape of birds, church bells and spooled tape, interspersed in amongst delicate folk dances and deadpan vocal recitals in a very understated way that bespeaks of Britishness and village greens. Quite simply, it’s gorgeous.


THE ALIENS     BOBBY’S SONG



The opening track from the second and, so far, last album by The Aliens, LUNA. I understand that, after taking a year off to pursue other projects, a third album might be in the pipeline and I, for one, am holding my breath, what with being a big fan of their woozy psychedelia and all.


THE EIGHTEENTH DAY OF MAY     THE HIGHEST TREE



I love this track. It's probably my favourite on this evening's show - it never makes me feel less than joyful, and possibly up for a bit of dancing if someone was able to produce a fiddle from behind a convenient hay stack. The Eighteenth Day of May only made one album, THE EIGHTEENTH DAY OF MAY, released in 2007. It sounds like they grew up listening to their parent's early Fairport Convention albums, but try as I might I can't think of anything wrong with that.


MOON WIRING CLUB     POWDER AND CRINOLINE



Spooky going’s on of a hauntological nature from Ian Hodgson’s Moon Wiring Club, with a track from his 8th album TODAY BREAD, TOMORROW SECRETS, released in 2012.


VOICE OF THE SEVEN THUNDERS     KOMMUNE



The last time I heard of Rick Tomlinson he was operating under the name Voice Of The Seven Woods and, in 2007, had released a beautiful album of intricate, acoustic, acid-folk meanderings of a slightly rustic nature of the same name. At some point following that release he happened upon a book of apocalyptical prophecies dating back to the late 1800s which seemed to cause not only a name change but something of a change in direction too. On his second album, VOICE OF THE SEVEN THUNDERS, released in 2010, the bucolic loveliness of his first has been augmented by krautrock rhythms, tape loops and guitar workouts that, as opener Kommune attests, can only be described as blistering. 

THE BEATLES     THE INNER LIGHT



Not really a Beatles record in the same way that Yesterday isn’t strictly speaking a Beatles record. It was recorded by George in Mumbai, for a start, and featured local musicians assembled by Harrison to provide soundtrack music for the film Wonderwall, although Lennon and McCartney do provide a few backing vocals. Released in 1968 as the b-side to the avowedly rockier Lady Madonna, it was apparently inspired by a letter Harrison received from a Sanskrit scholar at Cambridge who suggested that he might like to put into music a few words from the Tao Te Ching perhaps - number 48, page 66 of the book, for example. Paul is said to have liked the melody.
    

THE AMORPHOUS ANDROGYNOUS     OPUS OF THE BLACK SUN



The marvellous Amorphous Androgynous with a lovely acoustic track taken from their 2008 release THE PEPPERMINT TREE AND THE SEEDS OF SUPERCONSCIOUSNESS which verily doeth what it sayeth on the label.


OSYMYSO     FIVER TO BIGWIG



This is a bit unfair, isn't it? If I've done my job properly I've led you up the garden path and left you there dazed in some pastoral psychedelic reverie, then I play out with this track by Osymyso which, I don't know, just seemed to fit. Anyway, you can't take these things too seriously and just for the record, you can find it here  He's also the creator of BRINGS YOU THE ART OF FLIPPING CHANNELS, which is an excellent mash up of sounds and 1970's TV show themes, so he's not entirely evil.


THE TAPE-BEATLES     MICROPHONE BURNING IN FLAMES



Another track from A SUBTLE BUOYANCY OF PULSE, released in 1988 and something of a get-out-of-jail-free card as far as Mind De-Coder is concerned. This is from when cut-n-paste was something that you did in the privacy of your own home – there weren’t functions on your PC to do it all for you.



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