Faine Jade - 1968 - Introspection

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

I've had this album lying around for a few years now, but I never really got around to listening to it- I think I found the band's name somehow unappealing. Anyway, that was my loss as this is a first rate collection of sun-drenched psychedelic rock. Faine Jade isn't a band either as it turns out this is a solo LP and that's the feller's name - sort of an opposite version of the Lynyrd Skynyrd - Jethro Tull - Pink Floyd conundrum. As often crops up on this blog, Pink Floyd is also a notable signpost for the music here as Faine Jade's songwriting and vocals were definitely taking notes from Syd Barrett, and he does a damn fine job of it. Still, the thing that really makes this a notable release is that Jade takes the sound of British Psychedelia and executes it as a garage-rocking, awesomely low rent version of the L.A. studio sound. A very groovy sound indeed.

There's not a bummer among these tracks - I try to not just throw around my 5 ratings. If you're looking for a straight up Americanized Barrett fix then you can't go wrong with the great "Games People Play," or "In a Brand New Groove." For straight out rocking, Faine Jade gives you the one-two punch with "I Lived Tomorrow" and "Ballad of the Bad Guys." "Cold Winter Sun" manages to sound like Galaxie 500 20 years before that band even started recording. You'll also find some strong psychedelic ballads on the title track and the "All You Need Is Love" echoing closer "Stand Together." I also find that "On the Inside" comes across as a nice extension of David Crosby's freaky later work with the Byrds. The only track here that might try your patience is the freak-out jam/sound collage "Grand Finale," but if you've got a soft spot for "Revolution #9" (as I do), then it'll all be groovy, yeah?

Really, this album belongs in the Pantheon of top rate, obscure psychedelic rockers like Rainbow Ffolly, July, or The End. In fact, it may be the best of that particular bunch. Faine Jade somehow managed to take pretty all of my favorite stylistic touches of 60's psychedelic rock, and get them all in the same place. It's like he was reading my mind eleven years before I was even born!

Afterglow - 1968 - Afterglow

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

Coming out of Oregon, this band doesn't have any particular innovations to offer, but they do have a groovy, listenable sound. They often skirt the boundaries of sunshine pop, all anchored by a wonderfully cheesy Farfisa organ sound. The band doesn't really have a ton of originality - much of this is aping more established acts like the Byrds and the Mamas and the Papas. Still, they were able to create a very consistent album that would swing at your retro-party.

None of the songs here are particularly bad, even if many of them do go sailing on the seas of cheese and nothing stands out to strongly. "Susie's Gone" is the most notable freak out on display here with acid-soaked vocals, and oddball beat and a melting, twangy guitar sound. "Chasing Rainbows" got stuck in my head for a few days, while "It's A Wonder' sports a pretty nice guitar riff alongside its sunshine vocals. I can't help but notice that "Mend This Heart of Mind" sounds suspiciously like the Byrds "Here Without You." It makes me think that Afterglow may be coming a little too close to some other songs that I'm just not catching at the moment.

There's nothing here that's going to blow your mind, but this is a pretty groovy slab of garage band sounding late sixties sunshine pop. While the date on this album is 1968, I think this music would have been a lot more at home about two years earlier. Still, most of this album will at least put you in a pretty good mood. Let's call it brain Jell-O.

Beachwood Sparks - 2002 - Make the Cowboy Robots Cry

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

Although Beachwood Sparks never came through with a proper third album, they did crank out this wonderful EP, which probably contains their best music. While maintaining true to their borrowed credo of 'cosmic American music,' the band modernizes it's sound somewhat with some synth runs and stylistic acknowledgement of the indie scene as of 2002. Along with the now expected nods to the Byrds, Gram Parsons, and the Buffalo Springfield, there are also echoes of peers such as Gorky's Zygotic Mynci and Grandaddy. This is especially good news for Chris Gunst - the music here is a much better fit for his vocal style. I'd say the band found their niche here - it's too bad that this is the end of the line so far for Beachwood Sparks.

The EP is bookended with the band's absolute best songs. "Drinkwater" is a trip-and-a-half, taking an awesome guitar part and dreamy vocals through sections of hazy reverb and full blast guitar buzz. "Ghost Dance 1492" is like the late 60's, tripped out Beach Boys moving their operation to an Arkansas hippy commune while simultaneously cranking up the amplifiers and drafting an insane acid guitarist into the band (not like that band's turdish 'Bluebirds Over the Mountain'). The meat inside the sandwich is pretty groovy as well. "Hibernation" is a very creepy ballad with a hint of crazy Roger Waters' era Pink Floyd wafting around in the mix, while "Sing Your Thoughts" brings in a fine mellotron-like part. Every track here has something interesting to offer.

Even as a 30 minute EP, this clocks in longer than some classic LPs that these guys were definitely listening to like the Byrds The Notorious Byrd Brothers and Younger Than Yesterday, or the Beach Boys' Friends, so I think it's safe to think of it as a proper album given the band's slim discography. And what an album it is! It jettisons some of the authentic sounding 60's sounds that the band previously did so well, but the modernist touches create an full-blooded identity for Beachwood Sparks that is surely worth your ear.

Beachwood Sparks - 2001 - Once We Were Trees

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

For their follow-up full-length album, Beachwood Sparks decided to take the old school double LP route. The band has made a few alterations to their sound, which end up pretty much being a zero sum game, but at least keep things sounding different. The songwriting has definitely matured since the debut album, but it doesn't always have the hooks that penetrated your brain on that one. I think the band probably realized that Chris Gunst's unadorned voice wasn't always the best idea, and they slather a bunch of reverb on much of this music. It does sound psychedelically groovy, but it's at the cost of some of the crisp late 60's L.A. sounds that the band recreated so well on their self-titled album.

The band front loads this album with their most hooky material - the rockin' psych hoedown of "You Take the Gold" will become stuck in your head forever, while the band nails their Byrds and Buffalo Springfield homages right of the bat with "Confusion is Nothing New" and"The Sun Surrounds Me," respectively. Later on, the band presents their best echo-chambered ballad on "Close Your Eyes." On this disc, the band ventures a little more into psychedelic freak out territory with some awesome wall of cathedral sound passages in "Let It Run," some full blooded weirdness on "Juggler's Revenge" and the properly epic title track. But this album got attention upon its release due to the left field cover of Sade's "By Your Side." Really, it's not the best thing on this album, but it is nicely appropriated to the band's sound and pretty entertaining.

Beachwood Sparks managed to both mature and find some new sonic territory on this LP - at the end of the day it stands on a pretty even keel with their debut. It seems that in 2011, this band has been all but forgotten, but there are plenty of sounds that will make this a welcome surprise.

Beachwood Sparks - 2000 - Beachwood Sparks

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

Beachwood Sparks took Gram Parsons' concept of 'cosmic American music' very seriously. As much as I like Gram Parsons, I was always a little disappointed by his own execution of this idea - I wanted more 'cosmic' sounds in the music. The Sparks apparently agreed, and this album is a wonderful fusion of the songwriting and vibes of the Byrds' Sweetheart of the Rodeo and the psychedelic pyrotechnics of that bands previous three LPs. To sweeten the deal a little, there are some stylistic touches borrowed from the Beach Boys and the Buffalo Springfield as well. That said, Beachwood Sparks does have a bit of an unfortunate Achilles heel - the voice of lead vocalist Christ Gunst. He's afflicted with the same problem that plagued so many indie bands around the year 2000, a sort of over-warbly, sad, whiny tone. The lonesome reedy tone of a Gram Parsons or the confident warble of a Roger McGuinn or Neil Young would have put this album over the top as an absolute classic, but I often find myself wanting to slap Gunst's voice and tell it to pull itself together. Fortunately, Gunst is often in a mix of harmony, where it works much better.

The first song, while well written, is also the worst case of Gunst's unadorned voice muddling up the proceedings. Head for "Silver Morning After," a great harmony-laced, cosmic country pop to get you in the mood for this album. "Sister Rose" takes the sound of Parsons' "Lazy Days" into interstellar space, while "This Is What It Feels Like" takes a brief detour into rockin' Beach Boys territory, while the band goes for a countryfied Smile sound on "Old Sea Miner." The best track here, though, is "Something I Don't Recognize," which detours much of the country sounds to head straight for the core of 1967 L.A. psychedelic rock. You'll also head several well done psychedelic country ballads which are generally well done, but didn't leave as much of an impression on this listener. I do have a soft spot, though, for the short experimental pieces like "Ballad of Never Rider," "Singing Butterfly," and "Sleeping Butterfly."

Coming annoying short of hitting all of their marks, Beachwood Sparks' debut LP still makes for some mighty fine listening. Give enough time to really get into this fine realization of a 'cosmic Americana' sound and you'll find yourself putting this into your rotation.

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

The Electric Flag - 1968 - A Long Time Comin'

Quality: 3.5 out 0f 5
Trip-O-Meter: 1.5 out of 5

With the name 'The Electric Flag,' a great psychedelic album cover, and the fact that the band's previous work was the soundtrack to "The Trip," you'd be forgiven for assuming that this album was a prime psychedelic work. For better of for worse, that's not the case. This is very much an album of horn-driven blues rock, although I certainly dig it more than what Chicago or Blood, Sweat, and Tears ended up doing with their horn sections. We've also got the phenomenal guitar of Mike Bloomfield and Buddy Miles' awesome drumming to tide us over, but it's not really a psychedelic affair. It's really more of a legitimate take on what the Blues Brothers were humorously aiming for.

There is a pretty groovy version of "Killing Floor" on display here - it's not quite up to the level of Hendrix's cover or Howlin' Wolf's original, but it's pretty groovy. For you psych spotters, the extended "Another Country" is your best bet, although it eventually does settle into blues jam territory - but again, the musicianship makes it worth your time. "Over Lovin' You" also hits a few trippier spots with its harpsichord passages.

Yeah, this is very much a blues rock sort of affair. I'd wager that it's the least psychedelic thing I've covered here at the garage, but if you're in the right mood, it can certainly find a few musical sweet spots.

The Electric Flag - 1967 - The Trip

Quality: 3.75 out of 5
Trip-O-Meter: 4.25 out of 5 (but varies greatly by track)

Way back in days of legend gone past (aka 2007), I did a review of the awesome psych-sploitation film "The Trip," which you'll find by clicking "The Trip." I tried to be as objective as possible, and I don't disagree with my old review. Yet despite (or maybe because of) its flaws, it ranks as one of my all-time favorite films and one of the few that I watch at least once a year. This soundtrack, by the Electric Flag, mirrors the film in terms of quality. It has moments of pure, yet manufactured psychedelic brilliance along with a few charmingly dumb sounds. The credits that I tracked down say that blues guitar god Mike Bloomfield wrote all of the music here, which I have trouble believing (and drumming deity Buddy Miles didn't write anything?). Maybe he just did a lot of tripping while working on this one - I guess the whole band did - this sounds absolutely nothing like their proper albums. While there very little horn driven blues rock, there are plenty of great psychedelic tapestries on display, goofy vaudeville inspired tunes, and aimless jamming. Fortunately, when Bloomfield is playing on top of the aimless jams, it remains pretty entertaining. It's even more entertaining in the movie when Bloomfield is wailing away on the soundtrack, yet we see Gram Parsons (who had absolutely nothing to do with the Electric Flag) playing something entirely different on screen. There's also a little bit of early Moog usage scattered about for all of you synth geeks out there.

The real 'money' on this disc musically are the phenomenal Hollywood psych instrumentals. Since we all live in the future, and can program albums however we want now, stick "Peter's Trip," "Joint Passing," "M-23," "Synesthesia," "A Little Head," "Inner Pocket," "Fewghh," and "Flash, Bang, Pow" all together and you'll get one of my personal favorite 15 minute blocks of music. Feel free to add the more traditional jams that actually sound like the Electric Flag from the latter half of the album - you can basically start at "Home Room" and go until the end of the album - but take out the goofy, fake dixieland of "Senior Citizen." You can program that with the equally ridiculous "Psych Soap," "Hobbit," and "The Other Ed Norton," play it in an endless loop, and drive yourself insane. "Green and Gold" is sort of an outlier. It's a pretty groovy fake Tex Mex track. Realistically it probably fits in with the "Senior Citizen" camp, but I like to program it along with the "Peter's Trip" clutch of tracks.

If you're already a fan of this movie, there's no way that you won't absolutely dig this soundtrack - warts and all. For those of you coming in from the outside, there are some treacherous waters, but you'll likely find some psychedelia or blues jamming to your liking. And for that guy out there who considers Harper's Bizarre his number one favorite band - you'll fall in love with the other tracks.

The Electric Banana - 1967-ish - Blows Your Mind

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

Unfortunately for the Pretty Things, they weren't quite in the top tier of moneymaking British rock bands and had to moonlight recording film soundtrack music under the psuedonym The Electric Banana. Fortunately for us, this means that there are a bunch of other songs recorded by the band around their S.F. Sorrow prime. If S.F. Sorrow is the Pretty Things' Sgt. Pepper, then this is their Magical Mystery Tour. This collection doesn't hold together as an album the way S.F. Sorrow does, nor does the production sparkle quite as much, but it doesn't really need to. You can take these on a song-by-song basis, and on that criteria you'll find quite a few gold sonic nuggets.

I love the tribal pounding "Alexander," which repurposes a short bass riff from "Defecting Grey," and build onto that to make a first rate psychedelic rocker. "Blow Your Mind" and "Rave Up" do just what they promise to do, with the band a full tilt and giving the Yardbirds a run for their money. Elsewhere, "Eagle's Son" is a great anthemic sounding track which the band probably could of used as a single. "If I Needed Someone" is not a Beatles cover, but a horn-laced ballad that shows off the band's softer side (which is good, but admittedly not as awesome as their balls-out rocking side). "I See You" is a rerecording of the S.F. Sorrow track - it's not as good, but it's still an interesting take of a great song. They do drift a little too close for comfort into pop cheesiness on the twee "What's Good For the Goose," while "Danger Signs" goes for the Motown sound and misses the mark. But since there's not really much flow to this collection to start with, they are easily ignored.

You'll hear some of the Pretty Things at their best and worst as the Electric Banana, but the balance definitely tilts to the positive side and this serves well as a companion disc to S.F. Sorrow. I only recently became aware of this set recently, and it was certainly a very groovy surprise.

The Pretty Things - 1968 - S.F. Sorrow

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

A full-length rock opera that predates the Who's Tommy, S.F. Sorrow is also a prime slice of British psychedelia that works just as well as the best of the early Pink Floyd, or psychedelic-era Beatles or Stones. In fact, this album is a third sibling to the better known Sgt. Pepper's and Pink Floyd's debut. These tracks were recorded at Abbey Road studios around the same time, with Beatles engineer Norman Smith serving as producer. The Pretty Things were a grungier, R&B sweating group, however, and this is by far the crunchiest of the three albums. Fortunately for you psychonauts out there, this is not at the expense of great songwriting and psychedelic flourishes. The lyric aren't quite as transcendent as the best of Bob Dylan and John Lennon, but they are good enough to be a reference copy for tripped out 60's psychedelic lyrics. As far as the rock opera story goes, I have no idea what the hell is supposed to be going on, but just as on Tommy, it doesn't really mater when the songs are this good.

There is no lack of phenomenal songs on this recording. While the opening track is very good, the creepy chanting vibe of "Bracelet of Fingers" is the first sign of perfection. It like the ghosts of the 1967 Beach Boys alternating with a whimsical Syd Barrett punch. I'm also a big fan of the insistent beat and sound effects of "Balloon Burning." My favorite thing here, though, is "Baron Saturday," which somehow sounds like a mid-70's Bowie track on the verses, while vocalist Phil May does a dead-on Lennon impression on the majestically psychedelic chorus. We also get a wall of delayed, Sun Ra-like percussion and short trip into an acid-fried happy land before blasting back into the chorus. Great stuff! For the big finally, there's a bit of full-blown, proto heavy metal on "Old Man Going." An amazing thing about this album is how often the Pretty Things managed to anticipate future styles of music. And before we move on, let me give a quick shout out to the criminally underrated guitarist Dick Taylor, who rattles off one awesome lead after another throughout the album.

We have a few fine bonus tracks here, but I'd be remiss not to address "Defecting Grey." This was a single, presented here in an unedited, five minute version. It's one of the best 60's psychedelic singles, period. It juxtaposes wildly demented psychedelic music hall sounds with wild acid rock rave-ups and pop bridge sections and ties it all together with noise and entertainingly jarring shifts. It's sort of like scanning through the 1967 radio dial from beyond the psychedelic curtain.

Like the other psychedelic Abbey Road albums, the mono mix is by far the superior mix. The stereo suffers from ridiculous stereo panning that dilutes the power of the band and a lack of skill in creating a proper psychedelic soundfield. Chances are a fair amount of you reading this are already perfectly familiar with this album, but it always a nice disc to revisit. If you haven't heard this, you're in for quite a treat - this could be your new favorite album.

Ulrich Schnauss - 2007 - Goodbye

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

This is the end result of Schnauss' obsessions with icy style electronic sounds and shoegazing aesthetics. Here we have a digital shoegazer classic that I feel ranks only a tiny cut below the best of My Bloody Valentine or Slowdive. A big development here is that Schnauss seems to have really focused on pure songwriting. His earlier album featured fine melodies and a few nice vocal hooks, but they still had the 'sound sculpture' feel that often shapes straight up electronic music (not that I dislike it - I typically take the 'sound sculpture' approach to my Damaged Tape compositions). Here, several songs are fully formed as a good rock band would do, or in Schnauss' case a good shoegazing band. In fact, while close scrutiny does reveal the hand of a skilled electronic producer, Goodbye often has the feel of a band recording - of course a very trippy band.

"Never Be the Same" is a nice announcement that Schauss will be going for a purer shoegaze sound with some fine female vocals and the trippy walls of echo in full effect. Schnauss typically appropriated the textured clean sounds of the quiet side of shoegazing, but on "Stars" he finally tackles the full on distorted guitar roar of My Bloody Valentine, and it results in one of his best tracks. Schnauss then indulges in several great, more ambient tracks - he is a master of this kind of tune - before opening the sonic gates of distortion once again on "A Song About Home." The guitar riff is a little reminiscent of Slowdive's "When the Sun Hits," but I'll give Schnauss a pass as that Slowdive track is one of my favorite songs in general. "Goodbye" is a nice crossroads of all of the styles Schnauss typically mines - perhaps he's suggesting that his next original album (which we're still waiting for in 2011!) will try something entirely different.

If this is 'goodbye' to Schnauss' shoegazing obsession, then this album is a fine send off. I just hope that he didn't mean 'goodbye' from music as we're still waiting for more (Schnauss did release a remix collection a year or two ago). But for you aging hipsters out there that can't get enough of these sorts of sounds (and hopefully a few of you young pups as well), then Goodbye is one of the best recent showcases you're likely to find.

Ulrich Schnauss - 2003 - A Strangely Isolated Place

Quality: 4 out of 5
Trip-O-Meter: 4.5 out of 5

Ulrich Schnauss doesn't make a drastic change in his sound on A Strangely Isolated Place, but he mixes up the details just enough to keep things interesting while generally maintaining quality control. Whereas his debut album was very cold and clean sounding, he grunges up the production a little bit for many of these tracks. They're still chilled out electronica with a shoegazing aesthetic, but the atmospherics end up much more varied with some distorted drums and high altitude crackling.

"Gone Forever" is the poppiest that Schnauss had gone up to this point, with an ethereal vocal hook serving as the signifier of the track. A propulsive bass line and a buzzsaw synth pushes "On My Own" a little harder than Schnauss had attempted up to this point. "Monday - Paracetamol" has a dirty, underwater sound that I suppose perfectly rflects the title, while "Blumenthal" has some huge synth that ramp up the ambient aspects. In fact, I would have been happy if the track never developed into a full blown production, although I have no complaints about the chiming melody in the second half. The title track is a multi-part affair which also does a fine job with ambient sections while also managing a spot of grungy shoegazing in the middle.

This is often cited as Schnauss' best LP, although I'd have to say it's actually my least favorite of his albums so far. That's not to say I don't like it - I do - but these tunes don't quite burrow into my brain the way some of his other efforts do. You may have a different reaction to this sonic narcotic.

Ulrich Schnauss - 2001 - Far Away Trains Passing By

Quality: 4.25 out of 5
Trip-O-Meter: 4.5 out of 5

I think Ulrich Schnauss is one of the more underrated musicians of the past decade. Along with his German countrymen (and women), Guitar, Schnauss has been taking aim an a great Euro-brand of shoegazing and electronic fusion. It's not the most original musical idea, but Schnauss' production talent allows him to work it into a state of near perfection. I think Schnauss is much better playing to his own strengths as his discography is wonderfully consistent, whereas Guitar got pretty hit-or-miss after their phenomenal first album. But we're here today to give a listen to Schauss' also great debut. The electronic quotient here is a little higher than his later albums, and while rarely lapsing into simple copying, the sounds here often evoke Air, Boards of Canada, and the quieter moments of Slowdive.

The album sets tone with the perfectly chilled out sounding "Knuddelmaus," and the album more or less hew closely to that sonic template. Some 'delayed to infinity ' guitars make their way into the sonic mix for the great "Between Us and Them." In fact, I feel like this does a better job of nailing down the electronic shoegazing sound of Slowdive's final album better than that band was able to do itself. "Molfsee" is the most derivative sounding track on the album, but it would fit perfectly well on a Boards of Canada album without anyone noticing that it was by a different creator. "Nobody's Home" brings the sound a little more above ground than the rest of the album, but it still features some wonderful dream pop textures.

My copy of this album came with a bonus disc which is good enough to make this qualify as a double album. These singles and B-sides fit in perfectly well with the rest of the album. The highlights include a great cover of Slowdive's "Crazy For You" and "Wherever You Are" ramps up the energy, which seems to be a signpost for where Schnauss would go on future releases. You'll even get a touch of vocals on this otherwise instrumental collection. In fact, the only dim spot on this bonus set is "As If You've Never Been Away," which comes a little too close for comfort to U2's "With or Without You."

This is a very modern sounding album, and definitely mining strains of psychedelia developed in the past couple decades. As I'm sure many of you do, I love vintage krautrock, but Germany has definitely shown a propensity for great electronic music over the past 15 or so years, and this is a great calling card for that.

Black Moth Super Rainbow - 2007 - Dandelion Gum

Quality: 4.5 out of 5
Trip-O-Meter: 4.75 out of 5

I've been digging this one on a pretty regular basis for the past three-and-a-half years. This very psychedelic synth loaded band hails from Pennsylvania and can rightfully lay claim to one of the trippiest pop albums of the past decade. There's plenty of novelty on this record with all of the vocals being run through a vocoder and plenty of goofy analog synths sounds often competing with mellotrons (or a good approximation of one). Still, the band steps up to the plate with some great songwriting and top rate psychedelic atmospherics.

This is an album that washes over you entirely, and there's not a bum track among the bunch. Even some of the experimental tracks rise above the 'filler' status as they do a fine job of transporting the listener through the album. I will give you a few starting points, though, to get you hooked. "Jump Into My Mouth and Breathe the Stardust" comes across as Beck on quaaludes with it's crusty acoustic guitar riff occasionally becoming overpowered by huge washes of mellotron, synth, and strange sound effects. "Lollipopsichord" seems to physically twist your mind with its reality bending synth riff. Actually, I think this would have been a fantastic album opener. The band does a fine job of building off of French electronica bands like Air and Mellow - "When the Sun Grows on Your Tongue" definitely would have fit well on one of Mellow's albums as a standout track.

This is an album that begs for plenty of repeat listening. Although many of the influences are clear, Black Moth Super Rainbow certainly appropriates them into a very groovy sound trip. If you have the opportunity, I'd recommend picking this up on vinyl. The trippy cover art is also bubblegum scented and the discs themselves of printed on strange bubblegum coloured vinyl.

Buy Me:
Black Moth Super Rainbow - 2007 - Dandelion Gum

Ravi Shankar and Ali Akbar Khan - 1995 - Master Musicians of India

Quality: 5 out of 5
Trip-O-Meter: 4.75 out of 5

One would expect much from a collaboration between Ravi Shankar and Ali Akbar Khan, two of India's most revered classical musicians, and this album does not disappoint. Shankar is probably the most visible Indian musician to westerners, and of course has done much to bring that music to the West. Khan is the 20th century participant in a family chain of master sarod players (the sarod is a sort of Indian lute) which stretches back to the 16th century. This music is firmly grounded in Indian musical traditions, and manages a rarified mystical aura that only the best musicians can achieve. I'm not sure on the particulars of this set (1995 is simply the tag on my files), but I believe that the first two tracks are from concert recordings in the early 70's, while the third track is a bonus track. Feel free to correct me.

Both the recording quality and the intensity of the music seems to build throughout this album. "Raga Palas Kafi" evokes primordial awakenings, with the string players weaving around each other mostly unaccompanied (some tabla begins pulsing in the last few minutes). There is far more tabla in "Raga Bilashkani Todi," allowing the music to ground itself a little more after floating through the vapors of the first track. It's worth noting that Shankar and Khan manage a perfect synergy, with neither pushing forward too much, but both making their musical identities clear. The third track, "Bangla Dhun," has a much more festive, lively sound, with very defined melody lines and a jolly roll to the tabla beat.

Regular readers of this blog are probably aware that I consider Indian music to be just as, if not more psychedelic, than the freakiest of 60's rock. This album has nothing but the ethereal sounds of Indian classical music, but it is definitely music that speaks directly to your mind's eye. It doesn't get much better than this with two masters performing at the top of their game, so I can recommend it without reservation.