The Electric Prunes - 1968 - Release Of An Oath

Quality: 3.75 out of 5
Trip-O-Meter: 3.5 out of 5

Pretty much dipping into the same well as Mass In F Minor, Dave Hassinger and David Axelrod worked out some traditional Jewish chants for a second religiously themed concept album. This time out though, there really were no actual Electric Prunes present. Hassinger and Axelrod simply had rights to the established name, and constucted a new core band along with a compliment of L.A. session players for this one. Even more than Mass In F Minor, Release Of An Oath should probably be labeled with David Axelrod's now cult-worthy name.

The album remains a strong effort, and there's a touch more melody and assimilation of the themes into the arrangements. "Holy Are You" in particular manages to equal and maybe even top F Minor's "Kyrie Eleison." Maybe the Jewish melodies just have a little more meat on the bones (edit: Wikipedia says only the first track is Jewish; the rest is actually based on orthodox Christian prayers). This too is a short album (24 minutes) and doesn't have a ton of variation. Axelrod is very much working in the same style of hip-hop precursor drums, wailing acid guitar leads, and bombastic swoops from the orchestra. Yes, it still sounds good, but there's nothing new to really distinguish the album from the last. According to the liner notes, Mr. Axelrod sort of got shoved into making this one, so it may just stem from a workmanlike effort and a lack of inspiration.

More annoying for me is that the chants on Release Of An Oath are all sung in English. I thought that the Latin-sung chants of F Minor added a mysterious atmosphere to the proceeding that is lost here. It brings everything a small step closer to being a real religious rock album instead of a tripped out approximation of one (I prefer the latter if you're keeping count).

Although laden with a few shortcomings, Release Of An Oath does make a nice pair with Mass In F Minor. I suppose it's only fair that we get a psychedelic synagogue to go along with the cathedral. These two albums also make a nice rock introduction to David Axelrod, whose first three albums we'll visit in the next few posts.

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The Electric Prunes - 1968 - Release Of An Oath

The Electric Prunes - 1968 - Mass In F Minor

Quality: 4 out of 5
Trip-O-Meter: 4 out of 5

I used to think that F minor was the psychedelic key, kind of like how A minor is often cited as the best key for depressing songs. Anyway, I'm sure that I made the connection out of strange recollections of this album. It's one of the best examples of pre-fab production psych out there

Realistically, this isn't really an Electric Prunes. It's more of a studio based wacked out concept album along the lines of the Zodiac's Cosmic Sounds. The Prunes became tenuously attached as producer Dave Hassinger wanted to find a more commercial vehicle for the band and somehow came upon the concept of psychedelic Catholic chants. It seems that the Prunes ended up a bit used and abused, but the word is that they went along for the ride anyway.

Holding the creative tiller was none other than cult jazz/psych guru, David Axelrod. Axelrod is responsible for all of the arranging duties on this album (I think we'll keep the basic composition credits with some long dead Catholic monks), and he did a very groovy job. The trouble was that his arrangements were a little over the heads of the talented, but not musically schooled fellows making up the garage rocking Electric Prunes. Thus, the band ended up as little more than session musicians on their own album accompanying even more session musicians. There's an urban legend that the Prunes don't even show up on the record. The rhythm section of bassist Mark Tulin and drummer Quint do play on every track, and singer James Lowe remains as the lead voice of the monastic vocal, but it's still clearly Axelrod in the creative driver's seat.

Once you get the bad taste out of your mouth of the band being sidelined, you'll find that this is a damn fine album. In fact, it's more consistent than any of the band's proper releases, although the awesome pop punch of "I Had To Much To Dream Last Night" or "A Long Day's Flight" is notably absent. You will find the psychedelic religious strains of "Kyrie Eleison," which is very recognizable from its use in the film Easy Rider. It's also the most basic psych rock style track on the album, especially with the nails-on-glass noise explosion of the instrumental mid section.

For the rest of this short album (26 minutes!) Axelrod adopts an M.O. that renders the tracks a little formulaic. We get short passages of the Latin-language church chants bridged together by instrumental sections mostly alternating between blasts of acid fried guitar leads and amusingly pompous fanfares from the orchestra. "Benedictus" includes a notable keyboard and bass guitar break as well. Fortunately, Axelrod's arranging skills are top notch and keep things interesting throughout.

This disc is really more of an Axelrod album than an Electric Prunes album, and if you approach it as such I think you'll find plenty to like. Listen and enter the psychedelic gothic cathedral.

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The Electric Prunes - 1968 - Mass In F Minor

The Electric Prunes- Underground (1967)

Quality: 3.75 out of 5
Trip-O-Meter: 4 out of 5

The Electric Prunes second long player is a significant improvement over their first. It's lacking the instant punch of their first disc's amazing singles, but makes up for that with consistency. Here the band seems much more in control of their fate and firmly in the driver's seat. There are still some stylistic excursions, and they do not always work, but they don't jettison the Prunes' signature heavy reverb and tremelo sound as several tracks do on the first album. The band also takes on much more of a songwriting presence on Underground. Scribes Mantz and Tucker still contribute with three songs, but they don't have the massive presence that they did before.

Underground is bookended with it's best tracks. "The Great Banana Hoax," which was written by singer James Lowe and bassist Mark Tulin, starts the album off with a psychedelic tour-de-force. The band follows an awesome tom drum driven groove through several eerie and pleasingly disjointed sections of music. Although the strange structure wouldn't have earmarked this one as a single, for those willing to follow "The Great Banana Hoax" is just as rewarding as the first album's classic singles. More immediate is the closing track "A Long Day's Flight." This relatively simple garage rocker is performed with maximum impact and should have been the breakthrough single from the album (I don't believe it was ever released as a single).

In between these psychedelic masterpieces is a pretty good, if not great, album. The band seems to function best when they're riding a bubbling groove as on "The Great Banana Hoax." They manage to maintain a chill, almost San Francisco rock type of groove for five minutes on Tucker and Mantz's "I." "Children Of Rain" is a cool mid-tempo psych track and the band logs in another top flight rocker with the Lowe and Tulin written "Hideaway."

There are still a few questionable style changes on somewhat cheesy "Antique Doll" and the excursion into sunshine pop on the Goffin/King composition "I Happen To Love You." Fortunately this is not at the expense of the Prunes' trademarks, and thus are far more successful than certain tracks on the debut album.

Although lacking their best known songs, Underground is the most accurate representation of the Electric Prunes released in the 1960's, and more than deserves the ear of discerning psych rock fans.

The recent reissue includes a few non-album singles, plus a few mono mixes of the proper album tracks. Both the new remastering and the liner notes are superior and marginalize the previous CD releases of the album.

Buy Me:
Too Much To Dream: The Original Group Recordings

The Electric Prunes- I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night) (1967)

Quality: 3.25 out of 5
Trip-O-Meter: 3.25 out of 5 (5 for the singles)

The Electric Prunes debut album is a sometimes amazing, but all too often frustrating hodge podge of several different styles. While the band is rightfully revered as one of the best psychedelic garage bands to appear in the 60's, I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night) doesn't always play to the band's strengths. Along with some amazing psyche rockers, we get unfortunate attempts to include pop stylings and balladry that would at best be considered novelty numbers, and many could consider embarrassingly unlistenable.

But let's focus on the good news first. This LP is home to two of the best psychedelic singles ever released. The title track actually managed to make it to #11 on the charts and is a swirling buzz of garage perfection. Every instrument is utilized to amazing effect and the mood shifts between dreamy and a full-tilt fuzzy rocker effortlessly. If I had to explain psychedelic rock to an Neptunian, this would be one of my first plays. It's quintessential.

The follow-up single, "Get Me To The World On Time," is almost as good. While the track lacks the groovy mood shifts of the title tracks, it compensates with a gloriously twisted and distorted Bo Diddley beat. I have to admit that I think that this particular beat is generally overused, but here it works with the space-time ripping guitars and powerful vocals.

Actually the first side of the album holds up pretty well. There are a few lesser, but enjoyable rockers in "Bangles" and "Are You Loving Me More (But Enjoying It Less)". "Onie" is a slight almost bubblegum ballad, but is far from an embarrassment. Only "Sold To The Highest Bidder," featuring some out of place world-folky string instruments, bogs this side down. Unfortunately it's a masterpiece compared with some of the horrors on the second side.

Of course things start well with "Get Me To The World On Time," but then the band tries on some ill-fitting psychedelic pop affectations on the pop standard, "About A Quarter To Nine," and "The King Is In The Counting House," which is most notable for some wretch-inducing lyrics. Things get a little better on "Try Me On For Size," which is a little more of a rocker, but then the bottom falls out completely on "The Toonerville Trolley." It's one of those ultra twee vaudeville things, and really strokes your gag reflex. It's the aural equivilent of a train wreck. Anyone scouting this album out might want to stop the disc a track early.

The band is not completely to blame. Producer Dave Hasslinger, while proving to be quite a boon on the singles, was not nearly as adept at guiding the boys into genre other than nut-busting psychedelic garage rock. A similar gift and curse are the songs of Annette Tucker and Nancie Muntz. With Tucker co-writing six songs with Muntz (including the title track), and another two with Jill Jones (including the second single), their presence here is more than notable. Unfortunately, this team is also responsible for "The Tunerville Trolley." The band only logs in with two songs of their own, so they didn't seem to have their hand completely on the tiller at this point. Although very talented, The Electric Prunes are a band much better left in their garage psyche niche. They weren't really equipped for genre hopping.

While very far from a perfect set, I Had To Much To Dream (Last Night) is still an essential purchase for the psych fan. Although you'll probably want to avoid some of the dangerous water present here, you will be rewarded with two top-notch singles and several solid album tracks.

The recent reissue includes a few non-album singles, plus a few mono mixes of the proper album tracks. Both the new remastering and the liner notes are superior and marginalize the previous CD releases of the album.

Buy Me:
Too Much To Dream: The Original Group Recordings