Happy End - 1971 - Kazemachi Roman

Quality: 3.25 out of 5
Trip-O-Meter: 3 out of 5


Happy End's second disc is pretty much their attempt the band's attempt to refine and crystalize their basic sound. It's a brighter and folkier affair than their debut, and I'd say that they seem more confident and both songwriting and playing. This doesn't necessarily mean that I think it's a better album however. Like the cover art you see, the music comes across as a lot more 'blah.'

What I really dug about the first disc was it's often almost tongue in cheek experimentation. It seemed to somehow mix the sound of a solid, but not completely inspired professional band and the sound of some very talented, but undisciplined kids making music in a garage. Here, the balance is more on the side of the competent, but less interesting band. In particular, the band seems to be exchanging their more psychedelic sounds for CCR rhythms and pedal steel channeled through the Eagles. Personally, I don't think that is a very exciting prospect, but maybe you do.

So this is a nice, solid album, even if not providing much variation; I guess you could say the same for a Poco album. You've heard "Kaze wo Atsumete" if you've seen the film "Lost In Translation," and it's most certainly responsible for Happy End's recent international visibility. If you dig that track, you'll find more to like here, although you should expect a stronger infusion of imported country rock on other tracks. Nothing really hits the peaks of the first album, but everything here is at a consistently "pretty good" level. I prefer tracks like "Haikara Hacuch" or "Taifuu," which shift to a more rock sound. Elsewhere, "Ashita Tenki ni Naare" is an extremely stange attempt at funk. Basically, you need to hear this album at least one, but my guess is that you'd play the first one a little more often.

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Happy End - 1971 - Kazemachi Roman

Happy End - 1970 - Happy End

Quality: 3.75 out of 5
Trip-O-Meter: 3.25 out of 5

Getting into popular world music is often a slippery slope. Of course you can always track down traditional and/or folk sounds and at least appreciate it. With popular world music, however, I feel musicians tend to take one of two routes. Most artists latch on to the sounds of best-selling American and British artists and copy it. Unfortunately, this falls victim to the law of diminishing returns, and woe to our ears for the artist that is using bad western pop as their template. Restoring my faith in humanity are the more select artist who still may use western popular music as their basis, but really try to incorporate something new and/or distinct from their culture.

Happy End is not one of the best bands I've heard, but they deserve some respect. In the 60's, Japanese rock tended to consist of instrumental 'surf' style bands and folks covering western rock songs or trying to write their own in often broken English (those wanting Japanese lyrics had to turn to the ultra-melodramatic Japanese pop called 'enka'). Happy End did draw a lot from light psych bands and sunshine pop in the west, but they carved out their own unique sound with some interesting production touches and sang completely in Japanese, often drawing their melodies from native folk ideas.

This debut is a solid psych/folk groover, with the band creating their own spacey atmosphere rather confidently. The disc starts well with the catchy "Haruyo Koi," but I think they saved their better material for the midsection of the album. The backwards swishes of "Tobenai Sora" signal a shift into more experimentation and stylistic shifts. This and the three following tracks could have made a perfect sundrenched Japanese psych EP. The band's eponymous track near the end is another folky winner starting of like Appalachian porch music in the middle of the Japanese Alps before shifting into a groovy marching rhythm. This runs into the weirdly experimental "Zoku Happyend," which closes the album.

For me, the big hook for this band is Takashi Matsumoto's vocals. Often coming as a double-tracked wall, Matsumoto usually sings in sort of a strange dispassionate tone. Yet, the emotions of the song still come through, even with a language barrier in place for non Japanese-speaking listeners. It's as if he is able to suggest emotion rather than express it.

While not the best psych album you'll ever hear, Happy End is a nice comfortable 36 minutes that is a distinctly different flavor from more western sounds and certainly worth a little of your time.

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Happy End - 1970 - Happy End

The Hollies- 1966 - For Certain Because...

Quality: 3 out of 5
Trip-O-Meter: 2 out of 5

This album came out in late 1966, and unfortunately the Hollies were a little behind the times. For Certain Because... has a lot more in common with the pure pop rock of 1965 than of the wild experimentation steady building to a Summer of Love explosion. The Hollies do attempt a few more contemporary production touches here, but they mostly fall flat on their face and leave the convention rockers here as the highlights.

For Certain Because... starts off strong. "What's Wrong With the Way I Live" bursts straight out of the gate with a strong composition and plenty of the immaculate harmonies that were the Hollies' trademark. "Pay You Back With Interest" was a deserving medium size hit and "Tell Me To My Face" has a slight touch of bossa nova that works well.

The Hollies then spend too much of the rest of the album uncomfortably trying out random styles. "Clown" and "High Classed" are dripping with that kind of 60's cheese that keeps forcing images of Davy Jones into my mind. Meanwhile "What Went Wrong" includes pompous orchestration that sounds like it belongs in a 1960's Vegas awards spectacular. By trying to stretch their sound they end up just sounding hopelessly square.

Not that there aren't some bright spots later on. "Suspicious Look In Your Eyes," "Peculiar Situation," and "Don't Even Think About Changing" are all solid pop, although I'd imagine that they sounded dated even in late 1966. The Hollies only manage to stay on the crest of the wave of musical change on the closing track "Stop! Stop! Stop!" It's the only track here that I'd actually rate as being psychedelic, and it's a harbinger of the next two albums where the band would find a lot more footing to expand their sound.

Also included on this disc is the non-LP "On A Carousel." It's another track that would have been a perfect track for 1965; meaning once again that it's a solid pop track, but has little new to offer. We also get the stereo and mono mixes of everything. I wouldn't say that there's much of a difference, although my personal pet peeve concerning extreme stereo separation is very present in the stereo mix. I prefer at least a little percussion in both channels.

Those looking for the more psychedelic sound of Evolution or Butterfly will only find small hints of that sound here. If you're cool with some B-list 1965-style folk rock, you should end up with a couple choice tracks from For Certain Because...

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The Hollies- 1966 - For Certain Because...

Shpongle - 2005 - Nothing Lasts... But Nothing Is Lost

Quality: 4.5 out of 5
Trip-O-Meter: 4.5 out 5


This is a damn fine album. Here Shpongle refines some of the atmospherics and world beat elements of Tales Of The Inexpressible and uses them to create a voyage more like their first album. The concept here is a series of dreams which equates to what I like to think of as some awesome audio paintings. Although there are 20 listed on the back cover, it's better to think of these as several long tracks, especially as there is no pause between many of the tracks.

Posfords guitars return here as do many of the female vocals and other worldbeat elements. But where the last album used these in a jarring manner that sometimes threatened to make these psychedelic explorers sound more like Deep Forest, everything here is fully integrated into the trance-inducing rhythmic structure. Of course Raja Ram is present to contribute some odd utterances and make sure things are properly twisted.

As far as I can tell, the first dream sequence is like a surreal trip to Rio, maybe a little fear and loathing during carnival. The second sequence makes me think of a flying dream, an out of body experience perhaps above the London skies. For the next sequence we have an encounter with ancient Mayan shamanic culture. The fourth sequence places images of a extremely technological future in my head; sort of a happier Blade Runner landscape. For the finale we get a sequel to "Divine Moments Of Truth," which sounds like another DMT trip to me, including a Ned Flanders sample from the psychedelic chili pepper episode of "The Simpsons."

Of course the beauty here is that everyone will probably come up with completely different images and interpretation. This is a concept as no concept, or perhaps an attempt to tap into the collective unconscious.

Shpongle's third album is a nice Roarshach Test. It's not enough to listen to this album passively. To really appreciate it properly you must imprint a bit of yourself into the music and listen actively and using your own imagination.

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Shpongle - 2005 - Nothing Lasts... But Nothing Is Lost

Shpongle - 2001 - Tales Of The Inexpressible

Quality: 4 out of 5
Trip-O-Meter: 4.25

Shpongle continued to inhabit their distinctive little musical niche on this 2001 album. Fortunately, they did not attempt to recreate the blueprint of their debut as many electronic acts tend to do. I don't think this is quite as good as the debut, but it is still quite impressive and manages a different feel.

While the first album evoked wild psychedelic trips through multi-dimensional space, this one sounds a little more like the hip tribal ceremony down by the beach. The tracks are somewhat shorter, focusing on a distinct vibe rather than the shifting canvases of the first album. Additionally, there is far more organic sounds here. Simon Posford breaks out his Spanish flavored guitar straight away on "Dorset Perception," and it turns out that his fine playing fits perfectly in Shpongle's music.

Shpongle does a great job matching atmosphere to song titles. "A New Way To Say "Hooray"" takes on a humorous bent as we listen to the almost plodding march-like rhythm. Raja Ram gets plenty of space for his strange exhorations and spacey flute too. Meanwhile, "My Head Feels Like A Frisbee" is set to a rhythm that seems to be sonically spinning, before it collides with a little space age mambo. The most 'epic' track here would be "Around the World in a Tea Daze." It shows some signs of Berlin school pulsing, but ends up throwing a wall of worldbeat sounds and vocals. Honestly, it probably comes close to the line of being a bit cheesy, which was never an issue on the first album. If you're ok with a couple symphonic synths and an occasional club beat, you'll be fine. Besides the song eventually glides into Raja Ram nice introspective "Flute Fruit," which closes the album.

I would definitely suggest picking up Shpongle's debut first, but if you find that the atmosphere is your thing, then Tales Of The Inexpressible will add some fuel to your musical fire.

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Shpongle - 2001 - Tales Of The Inexpressible

Shpongle - 1998 - Are You Shpongled?

Quality: 4.5 out of 5
Trip-O-Meter: 4.5 out of 5

Shpongle is a criminally underrated electronic psychedelic band which successfully mixes the sound of pulsing psychedelic trance, with first rate ambient atmospherics. Like Steve Hillage in System 7, Shpongle is the modern home for a former 60's underground psych musician. Raja Ram, formerly the flautist and vocalist for Quintessence, provides the personality and basic aesthetic for Shpongle, along with some flute and strange chanted vocals. Supporting him the more nitty gritty side of drum and sequencing programming, and synths is Simon Posford. The two apparently hooked up musically after witnessing a solar eclipse in India while tripping the life fantastic. That scenario pretty much sums up the sound of the album too.

Are You Shpongled? presents a very unique and interesting form of psychedelia. The tools here are made up of your basic late 90's electronic music kit, although with some nice organic sounds sprinkled in, but the aim has more to do with the 60's. Posford and Raja Ram seem to be attempting some sort of spiritual nirvana through their music, which I doubt the Chemical Brothers tend to try (even if they have managed several awesome electronic psych tracks).

The first half of this disc presents some relatively short songs (only 7-9 minutes!) that are a fine introduction to the world of Shpongle. There are lots of world percussion sounds, cool samples, and plenty of Raja's flute. I tend to view this as the prelude for the second half, however.

Starting with "Behind Closed Eyes," the album takes on a more epic bent. The 12 minutes track is like a voyage through a dance club slowly but shifting into a ayahuasca induced Peruvian forest. It's very visual music, especially if you follow the instructions of the title.

Even better, and the peak of the album is "Divine Moments of Truth." Pick out the initials and you'll find that this is a tribute to this strong psychedelic substance. Fortunately, the music does a perfectly fine job on it's own evoking the kaleidoscopic, multi-dimensional world beyond this one. The shifting beats, and vocoded and organic chants do an amazing job of pushing the listener through an auditory trip. Following this is the far more chilled out "...And the Day Turned to Night," which owes more than a bit to late 70's and early 80's Tangerine Dream synth epics, while still including Shpongle's own trance-like bent.

Shpongle's debut does a great job melding modern electronic beats and effect to music that aims for a 60's aesthetic. There's really nothing else that sounds quite like this band.

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Shpongle - 1998 - Are You Shpongled?

Mort Garson & Jacques Wilson - 1968 - The Wozard Of Iz

Quality: 3.25 out of 5
Trip-O-Meter: 4.5 out of 5

Occasionally, you run across an album that almost gives psychedelic exploitation a good name. This certainly rates in that category. What we have here is a positively strange combination of elements which tried to be completely turned on and tuned out, and failed to a certain degree. Yet, in it's failure it turned out so odd that it is still wildly tripped out.

Let's go for the negatives first. The whole "Wizard of Oz" overlay is pretty cheezy. Apparently, here Dorothy (who may or may not be voiced by Nancy Sinatra) is a Kansas kid who tries to become one of the groovy people and getting to where it's at, but ends up surrounded by her psychedelic new friends in a reality bending field of poppies. Yes, we get about every psychedelic cliche possible in 1968 thrown at us during the course of this album. Hopefully you'll find this naively charming as I did rather than annoying. More annoying for me are the voices of the Wozard, Scarecrow, and Tin Man. It sounds like they pulled Sid Caesar, Carl Reiner, and Milton Berle off of a Borscht Belt stage, hopped them up with 28 hits of acid each, and tossed them into the recording studio. Actually, now that I've read my description, you might dig it.

On the sunburnt side of the teeth (I got this fine descriptor from the album), we have an interesting pedigree running the show here. Jacques Wilson wrote the poetry for the Zodiac's Cosmic Sounds album, and the ramblings here are equally strange and amusingly cliched. "Blue Poppy" in particular gives us a truly deranged stream-of-consciousness ranting. The scoring here is also an interesting slice of early electronica. Here's a couple quotes I found just from randomly clicking around the album. Really, it's full of them:

"We have forgotten things that we've never known"

"I have to find out where my head belongs, and listen to the songs, the groovy people sing. I want to do my thing."

"Johnny is marching home again... and again... and again. No, not again!"


Mort Garson, the arranger of Cosmic Sounds, teetered on the edge of being one of those Moog pioneers who devoted their talents to those strange bleepy and bloopy easy-listening albums of standards that you can hear daily in Tomorrowland at Disneyland. Fortunately, this being facinated with exploitative psych, he juxtaposes this kind of easy listening side with some wild screaming synth sound and plenty of odd sound effects. Once again "Blue Poppy" is the freaked out six minute focus for all of this. We also have "Leave The Driving To Us," which comes across as a first draft of Pink Floyd's "On The Run."

I can't guarantee that you'll like this album, but you owe it to yourself to give it a listen. It's alternately embarrassingly cliched and mind-blowingly insane. Leave a comment and tell me what you think.

Kevin Ayers - 2007 - The Unfairground

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

A musical slacker in the best possible sense of the word, Kevin Ayers has apparently been lounging on the beaches of Spain for the past 15 years strumming these songs on his guitar. Someone fortunately heard the quality of these songs and has been occasionally shoving Mr. Ayers into the studio for the past few years. The final product is surprisingly prime Ayers and comfortably sits on the shelf along with his great late 60's early 70's psych/folk.

The production distinctly harkens back to the sound of "Joy Of A Toy." There's a extremely diverse and organic collection of instruments on "The Unfairground." Fortunately the glam/prog experiments of the 70's and the thin, uninspired sound of his 80's recordings are nowhere to be found here. If anything, the well-done orchestrations present here suggests "Sgt. Pepper's" or "Forever Changes." Still, this is just icing on the cake as the core of the tunes here really is just Kevin and his acoustic guitar playing some of his best written tunes since, uh, well... ever. Ayers' also manage to dodge any signs of aging in his vocals. The fellow is well into his 60's, but sounds pretty much the same as he did in 1969 (maybe there's a slight touch of gravel, but it sounds fine). I'm sure it helps that Ayers has always sung in a warm baritone rather than a soaring falsetto or something.

Even on the classic "Joy Of A Toy," Ayers often let his ideas overstay their welcome and threadbare constructions would drone on for five minutes. Here we have fully realized compositions, so the production serves the songs instead of the other way around. I'd be willing to say that what would make up the first side on vinyl ("Only Heaven Knows," "Cold Shoulder," "Walk On Water," "Friends And Strangers") is Ayers' best run of songs ever and is even able to stand side-by-side with a classic like "Forever Changes." The second half of the album loses a little steam, but "Wide Awake" logs in one more essential Ayers tune.

With the first side presenting some of the best tunes of 2007, "The Unfairground" isn't just a comeback, but rather a complete reinvigoration. Hopefully given a couple more years on Spanish beaches, Ayers will find a little more inspiration in the back of his mind and bless us with a follow-up to this fine album. If not, this is the perfect coda for an underground psych superstar.

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Kevin Ayers - 2007 - The Unfairground