The Sufis, a new psych band from Nashville are beaming you up with kaleidoscopic soundpatterns. There are elements in their music, reminding me on the UK psych from the 60's - I'm talking of bands like "The Open Mind", the more psychedelic pieces of "The Eyes", Donovan's "Sunshine Superman" & co., or some lysergic songs by the Beatles... I can also hear strong parallels to Broadcast & The Focus Group's "Investigate Witch Cults of the Radio Age" ... Klemen did a nice interview with the Sufis and if you dig their sound and would like to know more about them, check it out here: http://psychedelicbaby.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-sufis-interview-with-calvin-laporte.html
about 4 years ago, I started this blog with the intention to share psychedelic art with all of you, adding some thoughts here and there, recommend some stuff, ... Yet it have been only songs - (mostly) - that I posted. For the future I'm planning A.) to post more regularely, B.) also to post video's/trailers/etc., psychedelic visual arts/drawings/so called digital-art (photo-"manipultion" etc.), introducing artists and performers C.) I'm also planning to post news about my two projects; my record label for Psych Rock & Acid Folk, called "Merlins Nose Records" and my shop "Surreal Peppermint Store", which is dedicated to supply you with "Psychedelic Delights for Body and Mind"!
Since a lot of mp3's are down and I have to re-upload them again, I will try to post one new post per week and restore one of the old posts and adding them to the top.
I'm excited to get this blog more active and I'm also glad about every feedback I do get on topics or whatever...
The Eyes, were an Freakbeat and Garage Rock group from London in the 60's. I don't know much about them, but that they have realeased a load of singles and Acme licenced them and putted out a propper reissue of them in a compilation in 2006 together with Lion Productions. Sooner or later I will post another song form this comp, wich is entitled "The Arrival of the Eyes" and also feat. alternate takes/demos. Some of the tracks (as well as this one) are quite psychedelic! "The Immediate Pleasure" for example leans toward a strong Byrds vein (before they had their "cowboy attitude" ;-) ) mixed up with that certain british beat of the 60's, the Beatles cultivated.
The Quit Jungle's '67 single got bootleged quite often. starting with the countless amount of psych comps and ending with the recent Garage Greats exact repro 45's ... What is known about this band? Let's ask Canuckistan Music: "Toronto's Doug Rankine and the Secrets scored huge in early 1966 with a rather goofy novelty hit, a quintessentially Canadian ode to the burly Toronto Maple Leaf forward Eddie Shack called 'Clear the Track, Here Comes Shack'. This tepid Merseybeat clone rocketed to number one on the CHUM-AM charts in Toronto in February, 1966, ultimately and inexplicably charting for nine weeks. However, by early '67, having by then adopted the hipper-sounding Quiet Jungle, the lads debuted with the first of two seven-inchers for the Yorkville label, later home to fellow garagesters the Ugly Ducklings. 'Ship of Dreams', is stellar psychedelia, opening with an eerie guitar squeal that presages Fever Tree's 'San Francisco Girls', and with delicious organ riffs and mellifluous harmonies that would justifiably see it hit #31 in February of that year. Flip it over and the wax explodes with some gruff and snarly - if not a tad formulaic - garage punk. The Quiet Jungle followed this with the less interesting, though much tougher to find, Too Much in Love / Make Up Your Mind (also on Yorkville), before vanishing from Toronto's Yorkville scene. Unbeknownst to many, though, is that the band found gainful employment as session musicians for the budget label Arc, churning out fodder for hundreds of K-Mart and Kresge bins with an entire set of Monkees hits, as well as a totally lame-o Christmas disc, The Story of Snoopy's Christmas and Other Favourite Children's Songs (Arc)."
A nice interview with Doug Rankine from the band can be read at: The Garage Hangover!
Otis Optic & The Option People are aband based in Germany. They released their debut on Nasoni Records and mark their discoraphy highlights along with a hand full of other albums. Although it's a mystery to my, why they are that little known. ok, it's the label-politics regarding promotion on one hand, but on the other they are not known to a lot of Garage Punkers. Their songs consist of a strong psychedelic style, and they rather established in the Neo-Psych scene (Vibravoid, Liquid Visions, Siena Root, ...). So let me recommend their album to everyone who is digging the good old Garage-Psych! The band's last activity is dated back to 2008, so just let's hope they have not broke and will delight us with more goodies in future!
Beneath Joana Newsom, Devendra Banhart, Iron & Wine and others, Joesephine Foster is one of the leading voices in the so called New Weird America genré, wich consists of a mix of alternative folk/songwriter and a remembrance of the psychedelic folk of the 60's and 70's. maybe some of it rooted as well in the freaky 90's folk as well (The Iditarod, Stone Breath, In Gowan Ring etc. ...). No Questions, Josephine's "Hazel Eyes, I Will Lead You" (where this title-track comes from) album is miles ahead of her other releases, wich are quite ... let's say, very strange (except for the "Little Life" EP). The Hazel Eyes album I could play over and over again. it's so deliciouse! it's a bit like Zen, turning everything topsy-turvy.
I doubt if I should post this song on the jukebox, since it's more than worn out and everybody of you might have heared it about 100 times already on several comps... however, this is a classic psych pop tune you should not miss to listen to once again. highly driven in that UK "Pepperish" psychedelic vein with a lot of echoing effects swirling around your head, even if you have no headphones on.
Aleppo Pine is a contemporary band from Spain. Their creations consist of a strong singer & songwriter vein, with a hint of Grateful Dead-like ease and strong leanings to psych folk bands and artists like Mark Fry, Amber, Maureeny Wishfull and others... "Black Wizard" reminds me on this gentle hippie-like sounds we are used to know from Yellow Autumn or the Tree People. Imagine longhaired, dovelike fellows and woman in couloured cloths, exotic visions and a peaceful rainbowfamily of the living light spirit. It's no wonder that the album where this track comes from is called "Holy Picnic". I highly recommend this band to anyone crossing the jukebox! you can listen to the whole album and/or pruchase it here: http://aleppopine.bandcamp.com/album/holy-picnic
"The Baroques had a fuzz-guitar/keyboard-damaged sound that retained much of the garage intensity of ’66 while plunging into the experimentation that marked the latter part of the decade." (~therisingstorm.net)
Starting like a psych-pop ballad, you'll later get overwhelmed with tons of heavy fuzz storming through your mind. Iowa is one of this sort of songs, wich might suprise you of their short runningtime. If you hear the experimental garage-psych-jams you probably would expect an 8-10 minute journey. However, this way it's been a nice flipside for their single "Mary Jane" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqDa5hCSQX0).
The Ultimate Spinach is an legendary project, founded by Ian Bruce-Douglas and a couple of friends from the non existing 60's Boston scene. You might wonder about the band's obscure name. if so, read what Ian has to say about it: "...One day, in 1967, I was in my room, tripping on some really pure LSD. I started looking at myself in the mirror and my face was doing funny things. I had a bunch of colored markers I used to draw with. I grabbed a green one and started drawing all these psychedelic designs on my face. When I was done, I looked at myself and said “Whoa! I am ultimate spinach. Ultimate spinach is me!” A couple of months later, I started “The Underground Cinema” and when we signed with The Parasite, I changed the band’s name to “Ultimate Spinach” for “luck”. Some luck!"
the first two albums of the 'Spinach, where really masterpieces, but then it began to crumble within the band and conflicts increased. Ian left the band after they recorded their second album "Behold & See". the thrid album is, - to be honest - not even worth to listen to. However, if you interested in more information about the Band's history, you can read an interview with Ian at Klemen's "It's Psychedelic Baby" magazine:
Most of you will know about the Incredible String Band I guess. Those that never heared of them and are just about to discover them, either love their mystic and freaky sound or the find them just annoying and strange. if you are searching for psychedelic folk & related music you will soon discover, that there are more and more occult and black magic people and bands are cavorting within contemporary scenes and releases. one good thing about the ISB is, that they seemed to be mostly peaceful, openminded and into "hippie-mystics" and white-magic. that's what makes me enjoying them as much as I do. so this song is one of several that are waiting to be posted at the jukebox. I hope you are enjoying this "cosmic-ringelreien" as well.
Lyrics:
Then come to me secretly
And with your silken feather
And with your silken feather
Open your rooms
Never, in fact, as he gazed amazed
At two lost eyebrows lisping into the unexpected
And the archetypal postman delivering your seed letters
Whose eyes are black eggs really
Upon a long shore, upon a long shore
Open your door, open your door
'Ask anyone,' he muttered, as he spat a small,
Brilliant blue insect whirring into the gauze.
'I would advise stilts for the quagmires,
And camels for the snowy hills
And any survivors
Their debts I will certainly pay.
There's always a way, there's always a way.
I smiled with that gallantly concealed forceful nervousness
That has proved that oysters cry
And that I have come to know and accept as myself.
And plucking a barbed feather from the morose universe
I called him deathless
And he left before he could reply
Open your eyes, open your eyes
Our first father, Abraham, whose bosom
Was the unique soul of the humans
Was certainly as bewildered as we are
If not infinitely more so
And with an ancient ceremonial gesture of dismissal
He pointed forward.
Verily, verily
Verily, verily
The first day was golden
And she coloured the sun
And she named it Hyperion
And she made it a day of light and healing
The second was silver
And she coloured the moon
And she named it Phoebe
And she made a day of enchantment and the living waters
And the third was many-coloured
And she coloured the earth
And she made a day of joy
With the scarlet strength of seed
In the fourth black and white were mingled into quicksilver
And she coloured Mercury
And she made a day of wisdom
And the signs that are placed in the firmament
The fifth was bright blue
And she envisaged Jupiter
And she made a day of awe and circles, circles
And she sent it to guide the blood of the universe
The sixth was burning with icy, green flames that glowed white
And of her beauty she made Venus
And she made a day of love
Whereby all beings are united
The seventh was rich purple of the mollusks
And she coloured Chronos
And she made a day of idleness and repose
Whereon all beings cease from struggle.
Verily, verily
Verily, verily
I am the pebble in your very own eye
I am the sword and your enemy dies.
I am the storm and the hurricane wind
I am the thorn of an unkind friend
I am desire what colour my eyes?
I am Loki wizard of lies
Catch me, find me, see me if you can
I am the guilt of an honest man
Then seven times we raised our arms and with cat-stretch
Sent our footspells yawning into the multitudes
In need we called upon the mother of all living
Three times for succor
But with ambitious spears they made us change
They crouched behind their mirrors and fought on.
I will not allow them praise
That broke the harmonious globe in splintered fragments
And yet they moved perforce with a perfect pattern
And complemented harmony with dischord
And light with darkness
It was then that we stepped out of our world machine
Between the palm and the fingers
Peeling like gloves
And for each eye that shed one tear,
We made of that tear an ocean
And in the five directions
We loosed our several craft.
Wild sea, I say today,
Please be a sweet cow for me
Amethyst galleon, out on the rolling sea
Gentle as lightning, easily
Take me to the root of the world tree
Amethyst galleon, out on the rolling sea
Your face is consumed in a bruised sky's glance
By the brazen wall with your sword and lance
Where
Where dappled maidens, endless danced
Round the root of the world tree.
Wild sea, I say today
Please be a sweet cow for me
Amethyst galleon, out on the rolling sea
Wild sea, my love is salty for me
Every ripple in her body is a wave in me
Amethyst galleon, out on the rolling sea.
I never heared of this band until I read about them in one of Anazitisi Records' last years' newsletters. so the usual process began. I searched for them on youtube, digged, what I heared and got hold of their "In Retrospect" CD. The sound of Six Feet Under is of a darker shape, just in the vein of the "John Bassman Group", "Analogy" or "Axe". although this track is of a very short playtime, it's worth each second listening. heavy driffen guitar lines meet organ vibes and female vocals.
