Various Artists - 1967 - Contemporary Guitar - Spring '67

Quality: 4 out of 5
Trip-O-Meter: anywhere from about 3 to 4.5 out of 5

There was that time in the early to mid 60's when legitimate folk guitarists starting dropping acid and trying to play their 12-acoustics like sitars.  I'm pretty sure that that's how we got the Incredible String Band, at least by the time of their second album.  Back on the other side of the pond there were some minimalist guitar master wielding sheets of Appalachia and eastern tradition together.  They beat the beat bands and American rockers to the psychedelic punch, even if the sounds weren't quite as widescreen technicolour as the rock scene would later produce.  I've heard names like Robbie Bassho and John Fahey bouncing around for years, but I'd never felt smart enough to get around to them.  These recording are scratchy as hell, but it just helps to create the weird world beyond the rural veil of the American countryside.

Most of the tunes on this compilation are 6 or 12-string, acoustic explorations.  Everything here is pretty solid, although my attention keeps shifting to the two Max Ochs "Raga" tracks, which fulfills its title nicely while still sounding like it's coming off of a back porch in Arkansas, and  "The Thousand Incarnations of the Rose" by Robbie Basho, which is the sound of a guitar being programmed and processed by an ancient, analog computer in the celestial temple.  The precise and mathematical picking patterns on "The John Fahey Sampler" are notable as well.  Meanwhile, Bukka White shows up with a drummer and an electric guitar to show the youngin's how raw, gut bucket blues is done, and there's occasionally a touch cropping up on the ultra-obscure Henry Taussig tracks to change up the game a bit.

This isn't the easiest music to delve into, in part because of its eclecticism and in part because it's so difficult to track down the recordings (just try going on a Robbie Basho search).  Fortunately, this is a good place to start and is a nice reflection of the mid 60's attempts to capture the transcendental in the folk underground.

Various Artists - 2012 - The Lemon Tape

Quality: 4.25 out of 5
Trip-O-Meter: 4.25 out of 5

When I was a kid, I spent a lot of time spinning my dad's old Beatles and Doors albums as you may well guess.  But I remember on slab of vinyl called "Undercurrents," which featured some slightly more off-kilter acts like the Soft Machine, the Blues Project, and the Stone Poneys.  It was one of my first introductions to the musical world behind the veil, and the "Lemon Tape" sort of gives me a recall of that vibe.  This is a snapshot of Montreal's psychedelic scene, and what a wonderland it is!  A lot of this is what I'd want to hear stumbling into a back-alley, basement club like what we see in the films "The Trip," or "Blow-Up."  Pretty much all of the music ranges from lo-fi to mid-fi, and I must admit that it sounded a little ramshackle on my first pass.  Still, the thing kept growing on me and the flowers of the sonic lotus continue to unfold each time I play it.  You may have noticed that we don't see a whole lot of compilations here at the Garage, but this one plays nicely pretty much straight through.

Man, there are a lot of fine tracks here.  "Harpe Pierreries Chatoiement" by Bataille Solaire tosses us headfirst into the tribal-pounding echoland of early Pink Floyd.  "Twisted Games" from the Reveens throws us a straight up Nugget, while "A Spike" by Brave Radar and "Hvordan" by Einar Leiknes blend in a touch of the 80's underground jangle scene.  There's an instrumental cover of the Associations' "Never My Love" that seems to materialize in the psychedelic lounge as does "Cosmique Love" by Tomato Saucers.  The only tunes here that don't do it for me is the oddly warbling "Princess" by the Capital of Plastic Daffodils and a vocal bonus cut of "Never My Love" which seems to make the engineering mistake of bouncing the tracks on a tape a few too many time, and including vocalist that can't quite cut mustard.  Oh well, it's not anything to rain on your parade.

Well, I guess the goal here was to promote the Montreal psyche scene, and I'd have to sat that the "Lemon Tape" accomplishes that mission spectacularly.  You'll find a few names here to keep your ears open for, as well as have a trippy, twilight time digging the tunes that are present on this compilation.

Various Artists - 2000 - Stone Fox

Quality: 4.25 out of 5

Trip-O-Meter: 4.25 out of 5

When this compilation came out, I was DJ'ing at the University of Georgia and had some serious label love for Emperor Norton Records. They specialized in quirky, rubbery electronica and reissuing some of the albums that inspired it. I always tended to grab the CDs with their mark, and this one just happened to be in the free bin. I'm usually not a huge fan of the 'various artists' sort of set, but this one has always done it for me.

Arling and Cameron has the greatest presence here, They'd recently released an album of fake soundtrack music, which is represented by the Esquivel-by-way-of-Paris "Le Flic Et La Fille." Some remixes of tracks from that album also appear here, with Fantastic Plastic Machine's original mix of "Take Me to the Disco" trumping the album version, while the remix of "1999 Spaceclub," while entertaining, does not match it's album brother. Speaking of fake soundtracks, you'll hear a bit of the non-existent 'Logan's Sanctuary' with "Metropia." In the 'real soundtrack' department, there's an alternate version of Air's great "Playground Love," recorded for 'The Virgin Suicides,' lurking around here. For playful blasts of retro-electro-psychedelia, DJ Me DJ You's "Set the Controls" should hit the spot, and Takako Minekawa gives us a nice image of Bjork passed out in a Shibuya gutter with "Fantastic Voyage" while simultaneously referencing Lou Reef's "Walk on the Wild Side." Some oldies but goodies show up with a bit of homemade synthesizer guru Bruce Haack in the form of the kids' song "Upside Down," and Walter Murphy's "Dancin'" is ambiguously destined for an educational film of a sort-core adult movie- it's really hard to tell. And let's not forget, "Citroens 'n' Sitars" has sitars! Yay!

The Emperor Norton story is a tale that I think everyone might have forgotten. But I remember it, dammit! It's a little goofy at times, but I find it charming. In the top 40 of my mind, Arling and Cameron, DJ Me DJ You, Fantastic Plastic Machine, and Takako Minekawa were superstars!

Dr. Schluss - 2011 - Reprograms Your Mind

This is the music that I tend to listen to while hanging around on my balcony, waiting for inspiration. Quite a bit of it is sort of ambient and drone filled, but it's the kind of stuff that I really dig. I often hang around listening to the sounds around me and looking for glimmers of light while listening to this stuff, predicting the chance that a train will soon pass by. I don't live quite as close to the train tracks as Elwood Blues, but I'm plenty close. Since I'm lazy, I never got around to making a compilation of my favorite albums from 2010, but if you read into this tracklist, you'll get a good idea about what I got into. For the record, Tame Impala's "Innerspeaker" was my number one album last year. There's plenty of other tunes milling about here as well - most of it can qualify as psychedelic, but I've got to give space for musical dieties like Charlie Parker as well. Give it a listen - I hope you'll find it as groovy as I do.

Track List:
1. Desire Be Desire Go - Tame Impala
2. Double Helix - Emeralds
3. Divergent Paths - Panabrite
4. One With the Sun - Santana
5. In Motion - Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross
6. Please Take - Wire
7. Counting Sevens - White Hills
8. Synesthesia - The Electric Flag
9. Fireflies on the Water - Arp
10. Wasting Time - This Love is Deadly
11. Same Dream China - Gold Panda
12. Bongo Bop - Charlie Parker
13. The Game Has Changed - Daft Punk
14. Chariot of the God - Deodato
15. We Got the System to Fight the System - Maserati
16. Alice et Simon - Sonic Youth
17. Sun Demon - Stereolab

Dr. Schluss' Best of 2009

Sorry for the long absence from posting. It may be a day late and a dollar short, but here are my top ten albums of 2009. There were certainly some tripped out albums appearing this year, with many bands looking to the dark side of psych and sporting a tripped-out buzz. As I did last year, I stuck a few of my own tracks on (Damaged Tape and Glaze of Cathexis) at the end of this compilation, although I wouldn't have the presumption to actually consider them the best of the year. Anyway, here goes the list:

10. Neon Indian - Psychic Chasms: This promising debut sounds like a tape of top forty radio circa 1986 that has been left out in the sun on a summer's day far too long. Although it is annoyingly short, the key tracks are some of the best warped pop songs that reared their musical heads in 2009.

9. Super Furry Animals - Dark Days/Light Years: After a few albums that left me lukewarm, this psychedelic welsh institution managed to deliver another winner. Although "Crazy Naked Girls" is a poor opening track which pays tribute to Grand Funk Railroad for some reason, "Cardiff in the Sun" may be my favorite track this year and "The Very Best of Neil Diamond" will not gt out of my head.

8. Sonic Youth - The Eternal: The band was finally reunited with their long-lost guitars (apparently they were stolen more than 10 years ago) and managed an album that is practically a guide to their musical DNA. If I had to get super specific, I'd say the basic flow of this album is a "Goo" sound with "Dirty" songwriting. The band may be comprised of folks around 50 years old, but their playing is still very youthful.

7. Prefuse 73 - Everything She Touched Turned Ampexian: The ultimate short attention span record. Prefuse 73 continues to make compelling sound sculptures with lots of samples and wild electronic sound. Compared with previous Prefuse 73 albums, there isn't as much hip-hop stuff present, but I think the current paradigm is better for zoning out.

6. Tortoise - Beacons of Ancestorship: Tortoise continues to stand out at the vanguard of the 'post-rock' heap, whatever that means. Although the album eventually evens out into some enjoyable and quintessential Tortoise jazzy grooves, the album is at its best with the innovative first half where the band finds new ways to electronically mangle their music.

5. Thee Oh Sees - Help!: Fun, scrappy, sort of lo-fi Nuggets style rock. The playing and the songwriting are both spirited enough to put this one a cut above the rest of the garage rock heap.



4. Oneida - Rated O: Practically unclassifiable triple album opus. I sort of feel like this is a modern sort of 'Tago Mago' by Can. There's a disc of experimental insanity, a more conventional indie rock one and the middle, and a fine drone-rock album closing out the set. This is one of those records that you can move into for a few weeks.

3. Atlas Sound - Logos: Bradford Cox continues to hit them out of the park both with Deerhunter and with this solo project. The psychedelic grooves of his dreamlike work tend to grab hold of your brain and not let go.


2. Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavillion: The folk/psych gurus released their best LP this year and managed to accrue all the acclaim they deserve (and probably a little more). Panda Bear's vocals continue to be a perfect channeling of 1966 Brian Wilson and Avey Tare's singing is far smoother than usual. These fine vocal would be nothing, however, without the awesome soundscapes and hypnotic songwriting that these guys have worked up to perfection on this disc.

1. The Flaming Lips - Embryonic: Just when everyone had pretty much written off the Flaming Lips to 'dad' band status, they show up with their most out there album of the past twenty years. This is mostly dark, trance-inducing psych that brings in some of the best of both kraut-rock and fusion-era Miles Davis. Not everything here is great, but like the best double albums, it's always interesting. For some extra fun, download their cover of the entire Dark Side of the Moon (also released last year), where they manage to top pretty much every song from the original. Granted, I've probably heard the original 762 too many times due to radio overplaying the damn thing.

Listen to Me:
Dr. Schluss' Best of 2009

Dr. Schluss' Groovy Mix Tape, Vol. 1

While most of this probably falls under the psychedelic umbrella, there are a few deviations. You'll find some of these albums in the psychedelic garage, but we've also got stuff like a little 70's jazz-funk lurking about, along with a touch of rawk. There's also a fewer newer releases represented here which are too recent for me to feel ok posting the entire album. I made this little compilation to illustrate to Scott, the other fellow involved with Damaged Tape and Glaze of Cathexis, where my musical headspace is currently residing. This is the kind of stuff that I end up playing everyday. It's certainly influenced the new Glaze of Cathexis album (which will be posted in the next few days) and a few even more recent recordings. Hopefully you'll dig at least some of the music that's been catching my ear.


1. Agoraphobia - Deerhunter
2. Rainbow - Thee Oh Sees
3. Half Up Front - Prefuse 73
4. For Our Elegant Caste - Of Montreal
5. Spirit Molecule - Zoroaster
6. ZAP!...That's Witchcraft - Michael Flower
7. Heeding the Call - Bear McCreary
8. Mind Gardens (mono) - The Byrds
9. You Make Me Feel So Good - Bobbi Humphrey
10. Title Music From A Clockwork Orange - Wendy Carlos
11. Motorbike - Wooden Shjips
12. Cardiff in the Sun - Super Furry Animals
13. Wrathchild - Iron Maiden
14. Flower Sun Rain (Japan version) - Boris
15. Zauberburg 5 - Gas
16. It Feels So Good - Grover Washington, Jr.
17. Hold a Desert, Feel Its Hand - Grouper
18. Do You Close Your Eyes? - Rainbow
19. Illusions Disappear - Glaze of Cathexis

Listen to Me:
Dr. Schluss' Groovy Mix Tape, Vol. 1

Dr. Schluss' Best of 2008

Here are my top ten albums for 2008. Pretty much all of them have at least some kind of psychedelic flourish, but I do run a psychedelic blog. With all the older music I review on this sight, I think it's important to keep in mind all the great music that's being released in the present. I've included a few of my own recent compositions, too. It's not that I think they're the best of the year as I do with the other tracks, it's just my shameless ploy to get more listeners.


Here's a rundown (in order) of my favorites from 2008:


10. Alegranza by El Guincho - With the electronic freak-folk of Panda Bear's already classic "Person Pitch" as a starting point, El Guincho turns psychedelic atmospherics into a wild, percussive party in the pulsing heart of Barcelona.




9. Real Emotional Trash by Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks - Malkmus seems to be comfortably settling into some kind of indie jam band mode. I'm not typically one for jam bands, but his songwriting is top-notch and I have to admit that I prefer this to Malkmus' former band, Pavement.



8. Smile by Boris - Boris continues to be the best current metal band out there, and the psychedelic accents, especially on the tracks with Ghost's guitarist Michio Kurihara, really make this the thinking man's metallic noise. While this album is exceptional, it still doesn't compare to their live barrage of sound. See them if you get the chance.

7. Preteen Weaponry by Oneida - These in-your-face walls of mostly instrumental sound produces an intensity that no one else quite matched this year. Bury your mind under these sheets of guitar and pounding percussion. It ends up in a sweet spot between post-rock and noise band aesthetics.



6. High Places by High Places - With plunking production and cute-in-a-good-way female vocals, High Places' debut LP comes across as island music transmitted from Neptune.



5. Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel by Atlas Sound - Brandon Cox (of Deerhunter) shifted his main band's guitar driven atmospherics into the world of electronics and managed to create what may be the trippiest album that showed up this year.



4. That Lucky Old Sun by Brian Wilson - Brian Wilson may never again scale the heights of "Pet Sounds" again, but at age 66 he has managed to make music that matches the Beach Boys' 1965 pop prime, and that's more than good enough. This is the best sunshine pop you'll hear in the 21 century.


3. Microcastle/Weird Era Cont. by Deerhunter - Deerhunter takes their hazy guitarscapes and blends them well with 60's AM pop sensibilities. It's like being stuck between two amazing radio stations. See them live for an even more mindbending experience.



2. Skeletal Lamping by Of Montreal - Kevin Barnes' stumbles into uncharted territory as he melds his trademark psych-pop and electro-pop with his deranged alter-ego of a middle aged, transsexual, black funk singer. The disturbing thing is it works really well. The music changes often and drifts through about every possible pop genre, so hold on tight.


1. Just a Souvenir by Squarepusher - These are the electronic results of a wild and trippy dream about a surreal 'ultragig.' The results do not disappoint, nor do Squarepusher's phenomenal string bass skills. How could you go wrong when your concept revolves around a giant, glowing coathanger?



This are new releases, so I will not be treating you to the full albums, but you're more than welcome to the following sampling:

Track Listing:
1. The Release Will Come Soon - Glaze of Cathexis (3:02)
2. An Eluardian Instance - Of Montreal (4:35)
3. Vision's the First - High Places (3:37)
4. Operation - Deerhunter (4:04)
5. Antillas - El Guincho (5:28)
6. Planet Gear - Squarepusher (4:02)
7. Gardenia - Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks (2:53)
8. Live Let Live/That Lucky Old Sun (reprise) - Brian Wilson (2:34)
9. Paradise Drone - Damaged Tape (4:19)
10. Cold as Ice - Atlas Sound (3:33)
11. Flower Sun Rain - Boris (5:35)
12. Preteen Weaponry Part 2 - Oneida (11:26)
Total Time: (55:08)
97.3 MB

Listen To Me:
Dr. Schluss' Best of 2008

Dr. Schluss' Psychedelic Pop Explosion!!!

Howdy, folks! I'm not really a big compilation guy on this blog, but I wanted to get together a primer that might help folks become more familiar with the stuff they'll find here. Of course, I've been doing this blog for almost two years and I quickly realized that I couldn't really get an accurate statistical analysis of the entire thing. Thus, I invite you to unleash the more psychedelically poppy sorts of sounds upon your ear. Well, by poppy I guess I mean catchy tracks that generally fit into a pop music structure, but the sounds are certainly demented. Most of the tracks you'll find here are straight from the prime late 60's era of psychedelic weirdness. I've tried to avoid the folks that you've heard on the Nuggets' compilations, although I can't vouch about Pebbles (never really listened to those much). Anyway, give these tracks a listen and then fearlessly plunge into the Psychedelic Garage archives if you dare.

Track Listing:
1. Sweet December - The David (3:07)
2. (We Are) Dream Vendors - The Merchants of Dream (3:42)
3. Psyche Rock - Pierre Henry & Michel Colombier (2:38)
4. Jolly Mary - July (2:20)
5. Cancer (The Moon Child) - The Zodiac (3:29)
6. Whole Earth Rhythm - Saddhu Brand (3:22)
7. Wild Bill Hickock Rides Again - The Open Window (2:50)
8. Quem Twm Medo de Brincar de Amor - Os Mutantes (3:44)
9. 2086 - Bit' A Sweet (3:15)
10. At the Third Stroke - Picadilly Line (3:01)
11. Land of Sensations & Delights - J.K. and Co. (1:46)
12. Walking in the Forest (Of My Mind) - Paul Perrish (2:43)
13. Girl on a Swing - Kevin Ayers (2:49)
14. Cardboard Watch - The End (2:54)
15. Black Sunshine - Kennelmus (2:50)
16. Baby, Let Me Show You Where I Live - Chrysalis (2:35)
17. The Island - The Millennium (3:21)
18. Gas Board Under - Skip Bifferty (2:19)
19. My Sorrow - Chico Magnetic Band (3:07)
20. No - Rainbow Ffolly (2:58)
21. Blue Poppy - Mort Garson & Jacques Wilson (6:51)
22. A Little Star - The Orient Express (2:21)
23. End of the World - Aphrodite's Child (3:19)
Total Time - (1:11:21)
121 MB

Listen to Me:
Dr. Schluss' Psychedelic Pop Explosion!!! (Part One)
Dr. Schluss' Psychedelic Pop Explosion!!! (Part Two)

V.A. - 2000 - The Early Gurus of Electronic Music

Every 'history' is biased and has some kind of ax to grind. The one that Thomas Ziegler and I set out to do was no different. In the summer of 1999, he asked me if I wanted to help him put together a multi-CD set to cover the history of electronic music. I jumped at the chance, having no idea what I was getting into and with zero experience as a producer. After settling down on a year span (the '80's seemed like a time when things really splintered), we then had the pain-staking task of deciding which artists and which pieces should be on it. As detailed in our liners for the release, some legal problems prevented us from including everything that we would have wanted to but in the end, we had 3 CD's with about forty artists, covering some of the most extraordinary composers and visionaries of the last century.

A number of other collections had covered one particular time period or region but there wasn't one release that had all of them together in one place. Along with inescapible names like Cage, Eno, Stockhausen, Riley, Reich and Xenakis, I thought it would also be important to include other composers who have made important contribution but might not be as well known, such as Eimert, Lansky, Chowning, Dodge, Le Caine, Maxfield, Parmegiani, Risset and Ussachevsky.

The end result is OHM- The Early Gurus of Electronic Music on Ellipsis Arts (available April 24th). Along with Thomas and the Ellipsis crew, we worked long and hard to contact all of the living composers to get quotes about their pieces as well as find archival essays and photos to go along with comments from artists influenced by these composers. Gruelling as it was, I hope that the end result will be worthwhile to anyone with an interest in electronic music.

I myself learned a lot from the experience and found myself with a treasure trove of material that we were not able to include in the accompanying booklet. Rather than let this historic material gather dust in my drawers, I thought I'd like to share this important material with the online world. As with OHM, I hope that this will become an invitation to you to explore more of this rich and astounding field. (internet source)

Homemade Lo-Fi Psych Compilations

I tend to shy aware from compilations, but this one deserves your psychedelic attention. Mike Floyd over at the Homemade Lo-fi Psych blog just got together another fine collection of tripped out sounds from an international constituent of musicians. In fact, there's a previously unreleased Glaze of Cathexis track there waiting for your ear. Give it a listen here:

Embryo Thoughts





If you dig it, check out the first volume (featuring a track from Damaged Tape's "Electric Ocean"), available here:

Relax and Float Downstream