MIND DE-CODER 66
To listen to the show just scroll to the bottom of the page
To listen to the show just scroll to the bottom of the page
To fall in hell, or soar angelic, you
need a pinch of psychedelic.
-Humphrey Osmond
THE
DANDELION SET PRISTINA STRAWBERRY
GIRL
Well,
you know where you are when you come across a track called Pristina Strawberry
Girl – expect lush psychedelia awash with an acid folk vibe sung in a plaintive
tone that is both a yearnful reminder of a lost love and an ode to the joys of
being blissfully high on a summer’s day, possibly in a meadow of some sort.
This is the opening track from The Dandelion Set’s debut album A THOUSAND
STRANDS – 1975-2015, released earlier this year. The album travels back to the
bands’ formative years in the mid-1970s, and passes through a cavalcade of
musical landmarks taking in library sounds, Canterbury jazz-prog, futuristic
urban film noir, whispered chanson sighs, woozy, flutey psychedelia,
harpsichords, Moogs, dulcimers and all that sort of thing. It really is quite
lovely. Cult writer Alan Moore adds sleeve notes and lyrics, as well as vocals
to one track, but it’s not half as psychedelic as you might think so I don’t
include it, tempted as I was.
LEGENDARY
PINK DOTS WAVING AT THE AEROPLANES
The
Legendary Pink Dots are an Anglo-Dutch experimental rock band who have released
more than 40 albums or so, none of which appear to have deigned the charts with
their presence. Their music touches on elements of neo-psychedelia, ambient
music, electronic music, tape music, industrial, psychedelic folk, synthpop,
post-punk, progressive, jazz, noise and pop with what you’d call a distinctly avant-garde
bent, so you’d have thought someone would
be interested (in actual fact, they have a small but devoted following). Waving
At The Aeroplanes is taken from their1983 release, CURSE. It has a glazed
Ballardian vibe that puts one in mind of a Meddle-period Pink Floyd, and that’s
no bad thing, of course.
KIKAGAKU
MOYO KOGARASHI
I
am, in the parlance of your proper radio presenter, loving the album HOUSE IN
THE TALL GRASS from Japan’s Kikagaku Moyo (which, I understand, means Geometric
Patterns), a band very much at home 70s rock, acid-folk, krautrock and
classical Indian vibes of a pulsing, hypnotic nature. HOUSE IN THE TALL GRASS,
released earlier this year, is their third album and it’s a thing of
understated beauty capable of taking you on a tripped-out journey to some place
blissful and peaceful, magickal and whimsical - glade-like perhaps - where the
warm air swarms with pollen and buzzes with insects, a pastoral idyll with just
a touch of avocado green and vermillion to it.
SOFT
HEARTED SCIENTISTS ON A PATHWAY
DARKLY
This
lovely little track is taken from GOLDEN OMENS, the seventh album by The Soft
Hearted Scientists, who, over two CDs, have created a whimsical soundtrack for
a blissful psychedelic afternoon. Split into four parts, it’s chock-full of
unique instrumentation, pastoral flourishes and off-kilter moments of sublime
beauty. The songs explore weird psychic terrains, between which instrumental interludes
take you along pathways of charmed bucolic simplicity, each tinged with a
lysergic quality that makes this my favourite band amongst favourite bands.
Sometimes I wish that that the instrumental soundscapes would turn into songs,
but, really, this is an album of haunted folk music that exists in its own
little self-contained bubble that welcomes me home whenever I hear it.
FAMILY SCENE THROUGH THE EYES OF A LENS
Alongside
Pink Floyd, Soft Machine, The Move and The Nice, Family were one of the premier
attractions on the UK underground scene but somehow they never achieved the level of
kudos of those aforementioned bands. These days they’re mostly famous for whipping
the name MUSIC IN A DOLL'S HOUSE for their debut out from under The Beatles’
feet (and thus resulting in The White Album). Their debut single Scene Through The Eye of a Lens was
released in 1967 and suggests a dose of healthy cynicism despite the Middle
Eastern vibe they have going on.
THE
MOVE BEAUTIFUL DAUGHTER
Taken
from their second album SHAZAM, released in 1970, Beautiful Daughter is the gorgeous string-laden one on an album
that was otherwise experimenting with heavy-prog riffage and studio invention
that would ultimately lead to Electric Light Orchestra.
GROUP
1850 I PUT MY HAND ON YOUR SHOULDER
Group
1850 (or Groep 1850, to give them their correct name) was a Dutch psychedelic
rock band that was founded in 1964 in The Hague. They never achieved success
outside the Netherlands but are now, on the whole, considered one of the most
innovative acid rock bands from the era. I
Put My Hand On Your Shoulder is taken from the band’s debut album AGEMO’S
TRIP TO MOTHER EARTH, released in 1968. It owes a lot to the late-'60s school
of Pink Floyd-influenced British psychedelia, with a hint or two of the onset
of progressive rock-isms in the shape of plenty of melodic shifts, celestial
organs, wiggling distorted guitars, harmonic vocals, Gregorian chant-like
singing, phased drum soloing, solemnly intoned spoken female romantic
exclamations, and multilingual murmuring. You know, that sort of thing.
TOI
TOI TOI A HOLOGRAM BLOSSOMING
A
delightful interlude from Sebastian Counts, an electronic musician based in
Berlin, who releases music under the name Toi Toi Toi. A Hologram Blossoming is taken from his debut album HOLLOW EARTH
HIPPIES, originally released in 2011 but picked-up by Ghost Box and released
last year. It fits their aesthetic quite nicely, taking in a timeless melange
of ethnography, TV music and psychonautical exploration
all rendered
by analogue electronics, tape and samples. I’m almost duty bound to mention
that ‘Toi toi toi’, as German
speakers and fans of your opera will know, is a traditional wish of good luck,
equivalent to "break a leg".
US
69 2069 A SPACE ODDITY
US
69 were psychedelic rock group from Connecticut with tripped-out jazz
undercurrents and rough funky edges. Their debut album, YESTERDAY’S FOLKS,
released in 1969, combines sitar-led Eastern influences with psychedelic, jazz,
rock, soul, and funk, which all comes together in the epic 2069 A Space Oddity. I wonder who got there first with that whole 'Space Oddity’ thing?
JAMES
FASSETT STRANGE TO YOUR EARS
Just
a snippet of the sort of musique concrete experiments carried out in 1953 by
Jim Fassett, musical director for CBS Radio and the intermission announcer for
the New York Philharmonic. This was back in the day when tape recorders were
new technology, allowing Jim to make all kinds of experimentation of the ‘did you know you could record something -
and then SPEED IT UP or SLOW IT DOWN - and make it sound WACKY??!!’ variety.
He was especially enamoured with de-tuning birdsongs and punching out the long
tones in order to program new melodies and harmonies, which he explored in
greater detail on his 1960 LP SYMPHONY OF THE BIRDS. This track is an excerpt
from his 1955 release STRANGE TO YOUR EARS.
BEYOND
THE WIZARDS SLEEVE CREATION
This
is probably my favourite track on this evening’s show - the Stereolab
referencing Brazilian Tropicália of Creation
from Beyond The Wizards Sleeve’s debut album proper THE SOFT BOUNCE. Jane
Weaver’s sultry, light and dusty vocals hypnotise the palette whilst the
production itself is the trippiest thing you’ll hear this year. Absolutely
gorgeous.
BROADCAST
AND THE FOCUS GROUP YOU MUST WAKE
A
hauntological vignette taken from 2009’s BROADCAST AND THE FOCUS GROUP
INVESTIGATE WITCH CULTS OF THE RADIO AGE, an album that’s the aural equivalent
of opening a dusty wardrobe and having an entire childhood tumble down on your
head.
PRAM PICTUREBOX
Another
vignette – this time by Pram, whose analogue doodlings and hopscotch rhythms put
them broadly in the same hauntological environs as Broadcast in their courting
of the actively uncanny. Picturebox is
taken from their 5th album, THE MUSEUM OF IMAGINARY ANIMALS,
released in 2000.
GOD
HELP THE GIRL PRETTY WHEN THE WIND
BLOWS
Neither
psychedelic, hauntologically inclined or imbued with acid folk whimsy, but
quite lovely nevertheless. Pretty When
The Wind Blows is taken from the soundtrack to Stuart Murdoch’s GOD HELP
THE GIRL, the movie based around his Belle and Sebastian side project, also
called God Help The Girl. Now, Emily Browning is a very fine actress but not so
good as a singer, but this is what, I think, gives this particular track a fragile
charm all of its own. Having watched the film again recently, I couldn’t help
but wonder how very pretty the song would be under advantageous conditions (shall we say). I
can’t wait to find out. I’m lucky – when I get as lost as this, I have someone
who will always find me.
MARY
ARCHES WHITE BIRD OF THE OXENHAMS
Legend
tells of the White Bird of the Oxenham’s, an ancient Devonshire family for
whom, according to tradition, the visit of a white bird foretells of a death in
the family. Some stories say it is a dove, others that the bird is a thrush or
a ring ouzel, all seem to agree that the bird has a white breast, the mythical
status of which makes it the perfect topic for Folklore Tapes to investigate. Folklore
Tapes is an ongoing research and heritage project exploring the folkloric
arcana of the farthest-flung recesses of Great Britain and beyond. Traversing
the mysteries, myths, nature, magic, topography and strange phenomena of the
old counties through abstracted musical reinterpretation and experimental
visuals. White Bird Of The Oxenhams,
then, presented by the mysterious Mary Arches, is not so much a piece of music
as an experimental psycho-geographical interpretation of that myth, which
appears on side 2 of the tape cassette only release: DEVON FOLKORE TAPES VOL. V
– ORNITHOLOGY, which was made available in 2013. It will take you very far out,
indeed, but won’t have you tapping your foot. I’ve recently become a big fan of
Folklore Tapes. You can check them out here if you wish.
MAX
RICHTER PATH 5 (DELTA)
This
gorgeous piece is taken from Max Richter’s 2014 release FROM SLEEP, an hour
long ambient post-minimalist piece that accompanied his epic concept album
SLEEP – an 8 hour lullaby to be listened to while asleep. FROM SLEEP, on the
other hand, was designed to be listened to while fast awake. Path 5 (Delta) features the ethereal voice of British soprano singer, and baroque specialist, Grace
Davidson, whose wordless vocals magically connects her singing with the age-old
tradition of the lullaby. It’s a warm, slow-moving daydream with no sharp edges
and a self-consciously hazy sound, as if recorded next door or underwater. Spellbindingly
beautiful.
MARK
PRITCHARD YOU WASH MY SOUL
Mark
Pritchard has produced so much music under so many guises it’s almost
impossible to follow a common thread within them. For his current album UNDER
THE SUN, he’s adopted a deeply atmospheric and richly impressionistic approach
that applies ambient, folk and cinematic tropes to a blippy analog palette, which
suggests the influence of Delia Derbyshire and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop on this particular project. On
You Wash My Soul he records with the
semi-legendary folk artist Linda Perhacs who brings an ageless, willowy
psychedelia to the mix. Lovely.
BLACK
MOUNTAIN SPACE TO BAKERSFIELD
Canadian
stoner-prog from Black Mountain who, on their fourth album, the aptly titled
IV, create an astral sci-fi lullaby out of cosmic riffage for album closer Space To Bakersfield.
FLYING
SAUCER ATTACK FEEDBACK SONG
Flying
Saucer Attack were, and possibly still are, an English experimental space-rock,
drone-pop band that formed in 1992. They could be undeniably impenetrable, but
they were equally capable of creating evocative instrumental miniatures, folky
near-songs, and extended spatial explorations that were very much at home amid
the white-noise din and the bassy pulse of analog noisemakers that evoked the
spaciness of early '70s synth music. I think that sums up Feedback Song very nicely. It can be found on their 1995 album
CHORUS, a collection of singles, compilation cuts, and the entirety of a John
Peel radio session.
