This psychedelically rockin' (and shoegazing) EP and video clip are here to herald the final Glaze of Cathexis LP coming in August. Join us for one more run through the Glaze's soundworld of crackling fuzz guitars, unhinged drumming, and celestially trippy lyrics from their base in the mountains of Japan. If you are groovy enough to dig our sounds, we're not closing shop - just changing gears to the Electrick Sages project. That is what comes out of my current workflow and it sounds different than the Glaze.
Anyway, what you are getting here is one tune from the upcoming album, an alternate take of another tune from it, and several alternates of the past. I think the alternates are all the first versions of the songs. I like some of them quite well. I rerecorded Lotus Pond for the front slot on an earlier EP and decided I wanted a more driving take. 'Cadmium Glow' ended up on 'The Amorphous Infinity' LP in a slower version because this electronic drum pulsing take just didn't make sense on that album.
Join us and you may find yourselves down with our trip.
29 June 2017
David Bedford - 1972 - Nurses Song With Elephants
out of 5Trip-O-Meter: 5 out of 5, I guess - but it's a bad trip
Wow. I try to avoid getting too negative here at the Garage, but this doesn't do it for me. I thought I'd dig it. I can get into some of the avant garde and we've got Kevin Ayers and Mike Oldfield showing up here and there, but no, just no. It's sort of like the Red Krayola's debut album. That one is not an easy listen, but it's a lysergic needle through the head and when that album does coalesce into something like a song, it's intensely groovy. This one provides wisps of pointless noise, and when those do take the form of something, I'm still annoyed. Is it my mood? Give me a good argument that this is not pretentious twaddle and I will dive in for another listen. Maybe I need to start with a different album? Otherwise, let this enter history as the day that I first googled the poo emoji.
Elmer Gantry's Velvet Opera - 1968 - Elmer Gantry's Velvet Opera
Trip-O-Meter: 4 out of 5
This one is definitely a funn one, although it runs very hot/cold on the spectrum of taste. Elmer Gantry's Velvet Opera (I'm not typing all of that out again) walks along the razor blade between psychedelic pop and early heavy metal. The often fall off of it, but the do maintain their balance for some tunes as well.
So, the opening is like the open track of Sgt. Pepper's if that album had been made by Steppenwolf. This is not a compliment. But the track that the, uh, singer is introducing is actually pretty top notch. "Mother Writes" sort of falls backwards into punk rock too early in a charmingly Hawkwind-like manner. It takes until "Flames" for the band to light the afterburners again. Between that we get groovy psych tunes "Long Nights of Summer" and "Reflections of a Young Man," and several other tunes that don't really work so well. "Air" falls into the bin if sitar tunes that don't work. The hit rate stands solid through the rest of the album, with "Talk of the Devil" making the most impression with me. There are a slew of bonus tracks which I assume are singles, cover tunes, and a few things that sound like they were recorded sometime after the band was actually a going concern (my intuitive assumption). It's probably not essential for the 99% - as long as we allow that the 1% are all Elmer Gantry fans. "Raga" is exactly what it says - what the band Can would later refer to as 'an ethnological forgery." For some reason, "Eleanor Rigby" is now a heavy metal jam. That's probably worth hearing at least once for kitsch value if nothing else.
This album only has half an ass, but there are a few inspired moments scattered about. Again, "Mother Writes" will knock your bobby socks off. If it hasn't already made it to a Nuggets collection, it should have.
13 June 2017
The Floor - 1967 - 12 Floor
Trip-o-Meter: 4.25 out of 5
Once upon a time I wanted to name an indie rock band "The Red Curtains." Y'know, in a Dukes of Stratosphere reference. Me bandmates thought it was too non-descript, but here we've got Danish psyche-poppers "The Floor." How deep does this rabbit-hole of strange blandness? Do "The Socks" exist somewhere out there? Anyway, back to "The Floor." This is sort of a realtime Dukes of Stratosphere. Whereas we have the members of XTC emulating the sounds of 1967 in the early 80's, The Floor did it right smack in the middle of 1967. So, get ready to gulp down several spoonfuls of sugar on this one.
I guess "Turn It On" takes the groovy crown here. But that's because it straight up grabs the Beatles' "Taxman" bassline. Still, they've got the Jam's Paul Weller beat by a good baker's dozen of years on that one. "Hey Mr. Flowermann" comes across like flower power Spinal Tap, although I suppose the Floor aren't joking. I mean. for the most part, everything here is gonna sound like something else. The Moody Blues really have one straight on baroque pop album, so there is room in the universe for a tune like "Moonbeam." The Floor does not get points for originality. That is clear from their name. The strength is in their execution - their is a steady hand on the tiller for production, songwriting, playing, and singing.
Apparently, this one sports a reissue from a few years back which includes early renditions of a couple of Dylan's Basement Tapes songs. Those are probably worth your ear. As for the album proper, it is you insulin injection of psychedelic pop for the day. You hang around sites like this and that is probably what you need, yeah?
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