The legendary ex-GI beat group that invented nihilistic punk rock back in '66, return thirty years later for a phenomenal reunion show (at the garage-rock fest Cavestomp '99 in New York City), documented here. Even though their trademark monk-style haircuts are more or less naturally occuring now, these guys don't seem all that old from the sounds on this disc! Nothing lame about this at all! Monk Time '99 sounds just like Monk Time '66, wild and crazy, and all Monks fans will be happy with this, it's a blast. There's also some cd-rom video footage of the show for those with computers.
YESS!!! Ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmigod! Those are direct quotes from Allan the day he discovered, totally out of the blue, that this album had been reissued on cd by the Japanese label EM Records (same folks who put out the Symphony of the Birds reish reviewed elsewhere this list). Kerry and Andee were both in the office that day and can attest that Allan just about jumped out of his skin, his voice positively yelping with excitement. And now we're ALL going ohmigod, ohmigod too since the box from Japan that Allan ordered arrived and Moolah is among us.
Ok, so what the heck is Moolah?? Well we're talking a super-obscure psychedelic/experimental Holy Grail album here. Allan only knew about it 'cause he'd heard some of it on a cd-r burn that our pal Loren Chasse had gotten from Jan Anderzen of Finland's Kemialliset Ystavat. Totally weird, damaged, krautrocky cosmic psych with electronic drones, haunting classical piano, and fucked up rhythms! According to Anderzen, it was an ultra rare LP from the '70s by a band called Moolah, entitled Woe Ye Demons Possessed. Wow. Allan found it hard to believe that was really true, and that it wasn't just something recorded by some genius Finnish forest freak friend of Anderzen's directly for the cd-r. But some diligent research revealed that the mysterious Moolah was indeed a band from New York who released an album on what was probably their own label, Druidstone (!), in 1974. But it was still pretty much unknown and almost utterly unobtainable. It didn't seem to have ever been reissued. And even our most '70s knowledgable psych-rock reissue supplier in Sweden hadn't heard of it at all. But we never lost hope. And now, thanks to the extremely strange and cool Japanese label EM Records, here at last we present to you Moolah on cd! We're still left in the dark about a lot of the details of this mysterious record's history (EM's sales info is mostly in Japanese) but from the album cover notes reproduced in the cd package we can tell you that the men behind Moolah were a duo named Walter Burns and Maurice Roberson, who recorded this, "their paranormal concertwork ...a cosmic rock relaxation creation" at a "secret studio in New York's Greenwich Village". There's also some amazing pagan poetry on the sleeve, here's a few lines: "Licking BLOOD Drinking TEARS Sacrificing LOVE on the Altar of Tomorrow Eating FRUITS of Stolen Vineyards With Withered Young Mouthes That Sing The OLD SONGS WHICH WERE FORBID".
And the music is as amazing as what Allan remembered. Dreamy, beautiful ambience -and- disturbingly chaotic, claustrophobic sounds. Shimmery, murky, distorted, primitive... is it even rock music? For the day, about as far out as you could get. Indeed, ahead of its time. Such tracks as "Crystal Waters", "Terror Is Real" and "The Hatd Hit" are lo-fi jams full of dubby echo effects, indistinct voices intoning New Age ideas, crazy backwards percussion, and insectoid squiggles of electronics. And we think we heard a purring cat in there too. The question is: did the Moolah duo simply inhabit their own, messed-up, mystical little world (which seems likely, judging by those sleeve notes of theirs), or had these guys heard records by early Kraftwerk, Amon Duul, Kluster, and Neu!? We wonder. But either way, the krautrock scene's freakiest had nothing on Moolah. File with such rare, eccentric, outsider psych artifacts as the Cromagnon's Orgasm, Yahowha 13's Penetration, and Comus' First Utterance. What a find. If you like weird, lost, lovely, maybe a bit frightening music THIS IS FOR YOU.
No, this band has nothing to do with the seminal German band Can nor with their two vocalists Malcolm Mooney and Damo Suzuki. Expecting a little krautrock? Think again. Think NYC rock'n'roll, baby. That's right. "People Get Ready" is a dozen sweaty badass numbers. With plenty of soul and bluesy firepower. Where else but on Estrus Records? Recorded by Tim Kerr.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Psychedelic pioneers in their home country, The Mops (great name!) were one of the originators of the Japanese GS (Group Sounds) scene. They were among the first in Japan to experiment with psychedelic studio effects like flanging and phasing, as well as with
As heavy-ish late sixties psychedelia from the garage goes, this one-off 1969 album from Long Island's Morgen is a worthy contender. The b&w Edvard Munch "Scream" on the cover is perhaps a clue that this will be fairly dark and tripped out, and it is, with druggy lyrics like: "Come take a bite from my gingerbread house, and let your troubles fade away...". That's from the album's first (and we think bestest) track, a definite fuzz psych classic, "Welcome To The Void". The fuzz is so thick, you could cut it with a knife. The singer (who's a better guitarist) delivers some turned on tales of popular nursery rhyme characters, but mainly you'll be hearing fuzzzz. And there's lotsa wild guitar and more fuzz as the album goes on. For fans of Electric Prunes, Plastic Cloud, The Litter, etc. If you haven't found a previous reissue of this already, we now have this limited numbered edition put out in the UK by Phoenix.
Dunno how we missed it when the Sundazed label put out this sweet reissue last year, but better late than never to list the early '70s heavy psych awesomeness of Morly Grey - any psychedelic rock freaks out there who didn't know about it should be super stoked!
This Youngstown, Ohio band's sole, privately pressed lp came out in 1972 and has long been considered a desirable underground artifact of hippiness and heaviness, the sort of thing that actually lives up to the collectors' hype, with original copies being relatively rare and expensive (and bootlegs prevalent). It's a blend of fuzzy acid rock guitars, mellow West Coast-y folkiness, and proggy ambition (the trippy title track, which incorporates an instrumental arrangement of "When Johnny Comes Marching Home", takes up a whole album side, at over 17 minutes in length). Plus a healthy dose of flowers and beads bedecked pop that harks back to the '60s sounds of the Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, and Jefferson Airplane, all acts no doubt influential upon the Morly Grey guys, even as they display nascent headbanging riff rock inclinations as well. So while a song like "Who Can I Say You Are" may mostly be all delicate and melodic (with vocals worthy of Bobb Trimble), it also kicks in with the heaviness at times too. That song, by the way, you may have heard already on that great Forge Your Own Chains: Heavy Psychedelic Ballads and Dirges compilation that came out a couple years ago.
Elsewhere, there's parts that remind us of krautrockers Agitation Free, and spacerockers Hawkwind... while lead-off cut "Peace Officer" could almost be early Blue Oyster Cult at their most psychedelic and proto-metallic.
We remember a long time ago, this was available as a compact disc reissue via Italy's Akarma label, but this nicely digipacked Sundazed reish is much superior, being totally legit and more than complete, as it includes a bunch of rare (and excellent) bonus tracks, totalling an additional 28+ minutes of music! There's also enlightening liner notes, based on interviews with surviving band members, by Doug Sheppard of Ugly Things magazine.
1971 strikes again! Proto-metal freaks, rejoice! Connoisseurs of the "early heavy" have reason to be excited about this, the lone album from this raw n' heavy psychedelic blues rock power trio from Denmark, originally released in '71, finally available as a legit cd reissue complete with liner notes and vintage photos in the cd booklet.
Recalling Vincebus Eruptum era Blue Cheer (big time!!) and early, bluesy Black Sabbath a bit too, Moses deliver blown-out, fuzz-bombed, acid-laced, hairy hippy proto-metal of Biblical proportions. Full of stoned vocals, loping riffs, and lots of wailing, wasted acid rock guitar soloing (worthy of Blue Cheer's Leigh Stephens and/or Randy Holden), Changes is highly recommended to anyone whose interest has been piqued by anything we've just mentioned or referenced. There's six songs here, nothing complex, certainly catchy though, what more to say? Each one provides the good vibes of ye olde primitive proto-metal, starting with the thudding blues brutality of title track "Changes" (which has nothing to do with the Black Sabbath piano ballad of the same name, by the way). Later on, "Beginning" gives the drummer some, ready for some DJ to mine for a crude breakbeat. "Skaev" is the only one here sung in Danish, but the lurching, surging riffage requires no translation. We're glad the final track, 7 minute track "Warning" is in English, though, 'cause we're getting a kick out of the lyrics, a story of a "straight" falling in with a turned-on crowd, which include lines like: "...and suddenly the girl gives him two feeling good pills, eat them if you can, a little after in a big discussion, forgotten everything about his wife, moving with the others in a big procession, he shouts out, this is life!" Awesome.
So, anyone into early Blue Cheer, Randy Holden's Population II, and the recently reissued Speed Glue & Shinki from Japan, stuff like that, will dig Moses for sure. Also, having just reviewed a bunch of '70s garage fuzz monsters from Africa, like Ngozi Family and Witch, we're hearing a lot of similarities here (minus the African thing, of course, but not the fuzz and groove). We bet if we said this was from Zambia or Nigeria, people would be freaking! Denmark is less "exotic", but that's not what's important when banging your head to these 1971 sounds.
First ever legit vinyl reissue of the only record, circa 1973, from this fairly obscure '70s British rock band, best known 'cause their lead guitar player was none other than Ray Russell, the cult free jazz/fusion/psych rock guitarist who did session work as well as a few albums of his own, his fans include Alan Licht and Jim O'Rourke, who put out a double cd Russell anthology on his own Mokai label a while back. In Mouse, Russell definitely goes more rock than jazz, in fact venturing pretty heavy territory at one point. The record is really all over the place, with stuff we love about '70s rock - from groovy, glammy honky tonk to poppy Beatles-y soft rock balladry to full on proto-doom riffery.
The festivities begin with a jolly good time of a song called "Going Out Tonight", a glam rockin' number with campy lyrics, that nicely transitions into an extended, spaced-out psych section which features Russell coaxing some strange sounds from his guitar, fading out eventually, making way for "You Don't Know", a quite pretty & melancholic pop ditty with wistful vocals. Following that, "Electric Lady" finds Mouse cranking up their amps for more of a riff rocker, but one that still has a pop sensibility to it. Next, "All The Fallen Teen Angels" is a cover, and good one, of a song by Medicine Head. Then the side closes out with the mostly instrumental and suprisingly doom-ridden "Asher Besher", the song's lengthy intro of heavy guitar chords and plodding drums being shockingly Sabbathy, what vocals there are closer to croaking crow-cries, before an urgent, burbling bass line kicks in and the track takes off into gnarled psychedelic guitar soloing - followed by a brief acoustic coda. Nice one, that, especially for proto-metal obsessives.
And if you thought that somehow side one had covered all the bases, not quite. Side two starts off with another excellent pop rocker, "We Can Make It", but that's followed by the spooked-out "East Of The Sun", a droning string-laden psych track that mostly sounds like 20th century avant-garde classical music! And then they start in with fuzzy proto-metal riffery again, with "Its Happening To Me And You", with wailing acid rock guitars and lyrics like these: "Waiting for the candy man / wondering who I really am / do you really need to care / if you're here or if you're there / why why why / why don't you try / gotta get high / it's happening to me and you / changes that you're going through / doing what you wanna do / moving like a movie queen / drifting through a purple dream". Druggy, eh? And so it goes, Mouse mixing lovely orchestrated pop with drug addled hippy trippiness and lashings of distorted guitar.
This record is the kind of thing that we'd imagine John Peel would have played a lot, but even if so, probably nobody else did and thus it was Mouse's only release. Still, a bit of a gem nice to have reissued, not just for fans of Ray Russell but also proto-metallers Steel Mill (whose ex-bass player was a member of Mouse), and early '70s UK prog, glam, and pop rock in general.
Remastered, 180 gram vinyl, gatefold sleeve, includes liner note insert, etc.
Another one from Akarma's back catalog of classic and obscure LPs reissued on cd, now in a jewel case at a cheaper price than before. This is a reissue of a 1968 recording by Houston, Texas' premiere psych-rock band The Moving Sidewalks, which featured none other than Billy Gibbons (guitar & vocal) who later grew his beard really long and earned his fame in ZZ Top. Along with the 13th Floor Elevators, these guys were one of the major bands that put Texas on the '60s garage psych map. On Flash, they rocked the house with groovy organ jammin', Gibbon's Hendrixy guitar, a dose of the blues and some trippy hippiness.
This reissue also contains five bonus tracks taken from singles that The Moving Sidewalks also released, including their classic "99th Floor" and a cover of The Beatles' "I Want To Hold Your Hand."
Don't know much about this new Ektro release -- all the info we can find is in Finnish and of friend Jussi of Ektro/Circle has a cryptic way about him -- but we do know that it's a reissue of a '70s Finnish folk/prog LP by a band with the pleasant sounding name of Mummi Kutoo. They play a weird (and you may think wonderful) concoction of rustic folk, psychedelic rock, New Orleans jazz, honkytonk, and bluegrass...one track might be all flutes and Floyd, the next a brass band number! Quite diverse in mood and musical style. In parts, it's a bit like a countrifed Dungen, if you're familiar with that current-yet-retro Swedish band. And it's certainly the soft seventies mellow pop psych cuts, the dreamiest stuff on here, that we like the best. With 23 songs on here (14 from the band's self-titled album released on Love Records in 1975 plus another 9 bonus tracks from the era) there's plenty to enjoy.
We really like this album, but went through a few phases in appreciating it. First off, when we heard about it, we were like, cool! This first-time-on-cd reissue of an extremely obscure, self-released 1971 LP checks out pretty well, on paper: it was a one-off record of tragic love songs done in late '60s psych pop style written and recorded by a teenager from Cyprus recently relocated to New York City. Heck, Middle Eastern psych, we can't get enough! But when we actually heard it, at first it was a little hard to get past how odd it sounded -- it wasn't quite what we were expecting. Marc Mundy's voice and lyrics eventually charmed us, but it's easy to see why he never make it big on the pop charts in the USA, with his foreign accent and amateur (but decent) singing skills. Then there's his lyrics, written in English, which perhaps explains how awkward his turns of phrase can be -- though again, in the end we found ourselves marveling at his heartfelt, heartbreak poetry. Such lyrics as "baby I love your lips / when they're wet with wine and desire / I love your hair / when it is messed up in the wind / baby I love your arms / when your soft, warm flesh touches mine / I love your eyes / when the lovelight lies / not for me the cold, calm kiss of a virgin / not for me / the bless of a saint..." might at first seem like typical love song stuff, but not really... coupled with his so-sincere delivery, Marc's words will find their way closer to your soul than most pop music lyrics ever do. Maybe it's the atypical metaphors, situations and stories that crop up in his songs, some of which must be inspired by the Mediterranean/Middle Eastern folk songs he'd heard in his youth.
For example, "How Can I Marry This Language" is about a father refusing to allow his daughter to marry the song's narrator, in language that he (the frustrated narrator/suitor) can't even understand. It's actually (intentionally, we think) humorous, which isn't the case with most of the sad, melancholic material on this album! Another track, "The Tragic House", is about an empty, abandoned house where the narrator's love used to live, before she vanished to who knows where, or why. Yup, super sad and melancholic. There's definitely lots of stuff on here if you ever need material for a breakup mix tape!! "Our Love Can Never Be", "Give Up Your Pride", "I'm Crying Your Name", "Don't Love Me Anymore", and others...
Yet despite the sadness, these songs percolate along, Marc taking the melodic lead on vocals and guitar, accompanied by a now-anonymous band of musicians, sounding vaguely exotic while also of its time and place (the Greenwich Village coffeehouse folk-rock scene, also home to The Devil's Anvil you'll recall). Ethereal female backing vocals also add to the lovely moodiness...
This reissue is one of those wonderful finds you've got to thank some obsessed collector for, and comes complete with lyric sheet and new liner notes. And it's fully authorized by Marc, whom we're told gave up on music as a career soon after this album was originally released and now lives back on Cyprus, teaching school (and hopefully not still pining for lost loves!).
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
When the first line of lyrics you hear on a record are something about "velveteen clouds" you know you're listening to something psychedelic -- in this case, a reissue of the rare 1969 album by LA psych-popsters the Music Emporium. Swirling organ, fuzz
Now considered something of a classic, here's an awesome acid-folk rarity recorded thirty-five years ago by a gaggle of hippies in Barcelona. This is something we've had sporadically in stock before ('cause people in the know were asking about it) but now at last we've got enough to list -- and they're cheaper than they were before, too! This, Musica Dispersa's only album, was originally released in 1970 and now appears on cd, digitally remastered, in a nice digipack complete with folded booklet/poster (the liner notes are all in Spanish but there are lots of sepia-toned photos for non Spanish readers to look at).
Their sound is both danity and drugged-out, occassionally playful but most often melancholic and mellow... with moaning vocals, sad flute, organ, mandolin, piano, bongos, and various other percussion instruments, Musica Dispersa made quite quiet and gentle, dismally beautiful music (that was apparently very political in the context of their times/place as well). They tend to draw comparison to both the archaic, acoustic approach of the Incredible String Band and other UK folk acts of the era, and the freaky freeform ramblings of early Amon Duul. And we're strongly reminded of another krautrock band, AQ faves Siloah. Definitely something for which the phrase "weird and wonderful" was always intended. Recommended.
Everybody has this record - but do you? When's the last time you listened to it? It's a '70s hard rock classic and it's only five bucks now on cd, so... Time to crank!
While we wait for the cd to be restocked (hopefully, soon, maybe today!), we just got a few copies of a new VINYL reissue of this krautrock classic. It's an import, expensive and limited of course, but you're probably never ever gonna find an original LP at any price...not sure if it has the bonus tracks that the cd had, but it does have the liner notes. And more importantly, it's in packaging that folds out into a giant cross, just like the original LP sleeve apparently did!! Wow. Here's a portion of our review of this album from when we listed the Garden Of Delights cd version:
Aa masterpiece of suicidal, political Krautrock heaviosity from 1972. NECRONOMICON. Freaky then, freaky now. Psychedelic hard rock that was about as 'extreme' as it got at the time...definitely if Terrorizer magazine had existed back then, these Germans would have made the cover. Not that this extreme by today's blackened metal standards, as there's enough pretty and melodic elements included amongst the fuzz riffage to satisfy the mellower hippie types in the Necronomicon freak-scene. And, they're no Black Sabbath. Still, pretty far gone for '72. The title: How To Kill Yourself. Now that's a bad trip. The very first track, the seven-minute "Prolog", almost makes the remainder of this album superflous, as it's a full, epic encapsulation Necronomicon's heavy prog excess. Theirs is an album replete with stinging acid guitar, heady Hammond organ, and monkish chanting. Ecclisastical choirs wail over trudging, yearning guitar and organ -- shades of Magma and J.A. Caesar. It's like Amon Duul II murdering Pink Floyd and riding their animated corpses all the way to hell. Again, not in any way metal, but what you might call Wagnerian garage-psych... Definitely an obscure but A-list kraut/psych album for those with occult tastes...
Like the Poobah reviewed last list, here's another, though much moldier, oldie previously reissued by Monster Records, now made available again by Rockadrome. The Monster version had different art/graphics and was titled The Living Dead Years, but these are the same tracks. And since the main reason collectors are into Negative Space is probably because their 1970 private press album was called Hard, Heavy, Mean and Evil (aren't YOU intrigued?) it's a good idea for Rockadrome to use that title for this edition, which includes that very album plus bonus tracks from post-Negative Space act Snow and other related stuff.
Unfortunately, not much of this is actually all that hard, heavy, mean or evil. Unless you think garage psych covers of "Summertime" count (track two here, pretty laid back but for some sudden eruptions of fuzz guitar distortion). There's a song here with a title that would seem promising, "The Long Hair", but that one's actually way mellow. While this is still a cool underground artifact of grungy garage at the dawn of the seventies, let's just say Sabbath had nothing to fear from these guys. Negative Space at their heaviest are more like a scuzzy Steppenwolf. Rather than being proto metal, these guys were already sounding retro in 1970-71 (among the bonus tracks there's covers of "Light My Fire", "Purple Haze", "Johnny B. Goode", and also Hoyt Axton's "The Pusher", a hit for ol' Steppenwolf y'know).
The tracks that ARE heavy ("Calm Before The Storm" and "Forbidden Fruit" in particular) WILL get Blue Cheer fans excited. But the solo acoustic demos from NS leader Rob Russen tacked on at the very end of this disc might kill that buzz. Heck, we don't really mean to slag this, it IS cool for what it is. Just be aware, it's not exactly what the title and band name and wishful thinking might lead you to believe. It's certainly ultra distorted and wailin' at times, but only at times, otherwise just a bit bleak and moody. Their mean & evil, hard & heavy reputation probably had more to do with their live show. In the cd booklet (packed with lyrics and liner notes in thorough Rockadrome tradition) mention is made of a studio engineer asserting "how impossible it was to capture and contain the power and fury of Negative Space's music". Apparently so, since so much of this is not-so-hard hippie rock, with its own rough hewn charms however, plus ever-lurking fuzz blasts to tease those here only for the heavier fare.
Finally able to get more of this classic psych pop gem back in stock!
It sometimes seems like, that if everyone stopped making music right now, we could coast along for years with all of the lost and undiscovered classics from the sixties and seventies that keep surfacing. It's definitely not a bad thing at all. Makes us wonder though about folks in the year 2040 and which of our current favorite bands will be re-discovered and reissued then. Neon Pearl was a precursor to legendary psych / prog outfit T2. You won't find much prog here, instead, Neon Pearl were a psychedelic soft pop combo falling sonically somewhere alongside groups like the Zombies, Sam Gopal, Kaleidoscope, the Association and other practitioners of sundazed sixties pop. Dreamy and sonorous, with liliting melodies, swirling organs, acoustic guitars and harmonium, and fuzzed out electric guitars, all supporting the rich almost-falsetto of lead vocalist/drummer Peter Dunton, with lots of 'lalala's and 'doodoodoo's. So so nice.
One of the more heartbreaking stories of the mid to late sixties Northern California music scene also contains a newly discovered trove of beautiful raga folk that has rarely been heard before now. The New Age were a trio of musicians, namely Susan Graubard (who also played in The Habibiyya, which we raved about a few lists back - on an apologetic side note, we're sorry we mistakenly thought she was a guy) on flutes, viola and tamboura and singer and guitarist Patrick Kilroy whose haunting three octave voice and love for indigenous musical forms and instrumentation, namely the Indian raga, gave the trio a majestic Eastern spiritual quality with an Appalachian folk edge (they had all studied under Ali Akbar Khan). Playing numerous shows, with many famous players of the time in Big Sur, Los Gatos, Berkeley, New York, San Francisco and even at the Human Be-In at Golden Gate Park, The New Age seemed destined to make a big impact on the West Coast folk scene. Yet, one album half-recorded with Elektra in New York (Light of Day) was never finished due to a falling out Kilroy had with the arranger. Even more tragically, these sessions they recorded with Warner Brothers (featuring Bruce Langhorne) were shelved when Kilroy suddenly took ill and died from Hodgkin's Disease at the end of 1967, before the album could be completed. Graubard, now a school teacher in Berkeley, saddened that The New Age never garnered even a footnote or mention in any written sixties musical history, held onto the tapes, in hopes of sometime releasing them. When Raymond Dumont of RD records heard lost tapes of Light of Day, he was pleasantly surprised to hear that more recordings existed and here we are. Great timing, too, that re-issues of The Habibiyya, Extradition, The Christ Tree, Malachi, Joakim Skogsberg along with The New Age are opening up a window into a little seen past where making music was as it should be, a human-spiritual-communal connection.
What would happen if the Shaggs had found god before recording their seminal LP? We've found the answer and it is The New Creation. Recorded in 1970, a year after the Shaggs' "Philosphy of the World" was released, one wonders if the group may have been inspired by the Shaggs D.I.Y. attitude. Hailing from Vancouver, B.C. The New Creation were the most unlikely blend of Christian evangelism with a flower-power hippy outlook which propelled their unique vision through an extremely off-kilter musical vehicle pieced together with leftover body parts: the Velvet Underground taped to the side of the Shaggs chassis with a rebuilt Pat Boone engine under the hood. Ramshackle and tentative, but so earnest and heartfelt and surprisingly catchy. And the lyrics aren't as positive as the music and the presentation might lead you to believe, focusing more on damnation, and fire and brimstone and b
Biblical tales of God's might and power. The biggest surprise is the opening track 'Countdown To Revolution', an epic, acid fried, unstructured freak out with strange effects, 'trippy' reverb, and all manner of TESTIFYIN'!! Creepy but cool!
From the same folks who brought us the amazing Teen Dance Music From China And Malaysia compilation.
Sometimes the timing of certain 'lost classic' reissues is too perfect, giving us a glimpse of the seeds of sounds to come, a prequel to certain musical trends that are gaining so much momentum in the here and now. Such is the case with this great, lost, lonesome psych classic from the Pacific Northwest, which was originally released in 1970. We're not sure if he's heard it or not, as this has been a really tough one to track down until recently, but man do we hear plenty of Kurt Vile in these old recording! With a fuzzy and faded vibe, The New Dawn crafted breezy yet dirgy pop songs that sound like some awesome combination of Lee Hazlewood, The Sonics, Roy Orbison, George Brigman, The Byrds, and the Velvet Underground. We can't get enough of the warm organ, haunting vocals, hypnotic percussion, just all the right sonic elements that really do evoke some desolate street at night, wet from a recent downpour and the flickering reflection of the moon on the shimmery black of the slick asphalt. So mesmerizing and intoxicating, we're beyond stoked this album is getting its beyond deserved moment!
Besides the obvious influence on Kurt Vile we could see so many other current AQ favorites being super into these sounds...Beach House, Silver Pines, Broadcast, Thee Oh Sees (circa Sucks Blood), The Beets, The Soundcarriers, Gary War, Sic Alps, as well as folks from the '80s and '90s that we love like Rain Parade, The Telescopes, Beachwood Sparks, Dream Syndicate, etc. Forty years after it was originally released There's A New Dawn is still completely captivating!
Reissue of rare 1968 collectible from this obscure (but of course legendary) psychedelic San Francisco band. A bit dour in a good way, imagine Moby Grape, with unison harmony vocals like a depressed Mamas and Papas. Another reason to get this is the glorious silver hexagonal digipak, a miniature of the original LP sleeve's "cosmic cube" design. It folds out and everything!
Man, have we been waiting for this! Why? Well, does Chrissy Zebby Tembo mean anything to you? The group that backed him up on his wonderful My Ancestors album from 1974 have a rare record of their own that's just been reissued, the electrifying indeed 45,000 Volts, and it's another killer document of Zambian heavy fuzz rock ("Zamrock"!) from the '70s! Founded by Paul Dobson Nyirongo, otherwise known as Paul Ngozi, a Hendrix-styled guitarist (he even did the trick of playing with his teeth), the Ngozi Family band released this winning album in 1977, and now that we've heard it, it goes right to the top of the selection of awesome garage fuzz rock from Africa in our collections, a small but ever growing category thanks to ruling reissues like this (we're also looking forward to Shadoks' impending cd edition of The Witch album, also from Zambia, next month, you should be too). And it's not so lo-fi as that Tembo disc, much better sound, though the production still sounds very "live", we think it's perfect, capturing both the thud and grace of the Ngozi Family's music.
There's ten tracks (including one bonus from a 7"), containing so much raw FUZZ! Burbling, sizzling, wah wah action. Along with wicked beats, soulful sincere vocals (some songs in English, others in a Zambian language, Nyanja perhaps), and groove that just won't quit. Most of the tracks are in a Western psych-rock style with distinct African influences, though a couple tracks near the end of the disc are much more like traditional Afrobeat, with hand percussion and mass chanting vocals. As far as the rock stuff goes, even when they kick back on the mellower, more sunshiney numbers there's still lotsa fuzz and snappy beats. And Ngozi actually translates to Danger in English, so you know that they don't neglect the harder and heavier fare on this album. Particularly proto-metal-ish is "Night Of Fear", with immensely fat riffing and echoed lyrics about graveyards and nightmares! Here and elsewhere we're reminded of Los Dug Dugs. Heck even a little Blue Cheer. And of course Ofege and Chrissy Zebby Tembo and others from Africa.
Timeless stuff, highly recommended. Tembo's My Ancestors, reissued on the same label, is already out of print on cd, and this reish is equally limited too, 500 copies only, so get it while you can. FYI there's also a vinyl version but our supplier is already out of those, at the moment anyway, if we're able to get more we'll list it then.
African garage fuzz fans listen up, we've got another nice "Zam-Rock" reissue here! Guitarist/vocalist Paul Ngozi (1949-1989), according to the adulatory liner notes in the cd booklet, was one of the Zambian music industry's biggest stars, at the forefront of the "Zam-Rock" phenomenon in the '70s. Those same notes explain he took the name 'Ngozi', which means danger, "because each time he took to the stage, people went crazy and it was all disaster"! Apparently he did the whole Hendrix routine of playing the guitar with his teeth, etc. We had heard of Ngozi before 'cause of previous reissues of his band the Ngozi Family's albums 45,000 Volts (1977) and My Ancestors (1974, with Chrissy Zebby Tembo). Both were KILLER, and so is this, a record originally released by a Kenyan label in 1976.
The Ghetto's nine tracks feature both hard-hitting riff rockers and more gently loping, lazy grooves. The singing is lovely & lilting some of the time, urgent & impassioned at others. The relatively lo-fi recording renders Ngozi's amped-up guitar fuzz kind of pleasantly 'soft' but still hella distorted. Lyrically, he tackles some heavy subjects here, like "Suicide", and starving children "In The Ghetto". It's spiritual too, with the song "Jesus Christ" being a most fuzzed out headbanger about Our Savior. Most of the songs are in English, but a few are in Ngozi's native tongue. If you've heard 45,000 Volts, or other Zam-Rock like The Witch and Rikki Ililonga, you pretty much know how rad this is already; it's got the fuzz, the funk, the African vibe� great stuff! Those liner notes also mention the titles of several other albums that Ngozi recorded, among them one called Heavy Metal (!) that we really hope gets reissued sometime too!
Classic and most essential Nico Record.
Yet another amazing discovery in the realms of unheralded heaviness from the '70s. Krautrockers Night Sun released this, their only album, back in 1972, and probably the only heavier sounds produced on earth that year were produced by Black Sabbath (and,
While we wish we could boast about having a large section of Greek '70s psychedelia, this one and only full length by Nostradamos, recorded in 1972, will now be the very high standard by which we will judge any other Greek acid-folk-psych-pop we are lucky enough to get our ears on. And that's kind of unfair for any of those records because this is truly an amazing and unique record.
As intricate and eclectic as they were poppy and infectious, Nostradamos utilized the regular rock band instrumentation but added elements like violin, flute, horns and harp which gave their songs a rich and colorful luster. Hints of more traditional Greek folk are infused into their psychedelic pop, giving an incredible range to the album and even within the songs themselves, thus making for an incredibly exciting and pleasurable listening experience. We definitely hear a kinship between this and some of the more earthy Tropicalia happening at the same time in a totally different place on the globe. Nostradamos still sounds so alive and relevant today. So many moments on this record would be at home on something by an Elephant 6 band, and we could see lots of today's indie folk stars like Beirut, Coco Rosie, Rio En Medio and even Dungen totally digging on this, we sure are!
We are big fans of the Brazilian pastoral psych of Lula Cortes, whether it be the phenomenal Satwa record or his later legendary mid-'70s masterpiece with Ze Ramalho, Paebiru, So you can imagine how our hearts went all aflutter when we got this latest Time-Lag reissue of the sole release by Marconi Notaro, a revolutionary Brazilian poet who recorded this album with both Cortes and Ramalho in 1973, the same year the Satwa record was released. Almost reading like a second Satwa album while at the same time predicting the later ecstatic fuzz experimental rock of Paebiru, the sunbaked exuberance and joy of these recordings belie their political spirit. Miraculously recorded and independently released amongst the harsh authority of the 1970's Brazilian government, Notaro, Cortes and Ramalho and others in the small and previously little-known Recife music scene were somehow able to bypass restrictions on music that was viewed as vehemently anti-state. Using acidy tape loop effects, electric and acoustic guitars, trancy folk percussion and the tricordio, a sitar/dulcimer hybrid that Cortes built himself, the songs here are mind-meltingly beautiful. Sadly Notaro passed away in 2000 of Hepatitis C leaving behind this record and seven published books of poetry. But with the authorization of Notaro's daughter and Lula Cortes himself, this classic masterpiece of protest is finally unearthed for us all. Totally Recommended!!
"Featuring The Cateroeternally Live Sound" it says, whatever that means...well, it means it's from the psychedelic '60s of course! Yep, the '60s psych pop reissues never seem to stop coming. Obscure bands with one collectable LP to their name having their tunes dug up and put out on cd at long last. In trying to keep up with the constant deluge, we've of course learned that not every reissue shoulda been -- but this 1967 album IS a good example of a worthwhile reish!
Dunno much about 'em, and being a Radioactive disc there ain't much in the way of liner notes, but we know The Nova Local were an American band (from Chapel Hill, NC), who seem equally influenced by both Hendrix and the Beatles. Their songs feature lovely vocal harmonies alongside heavy organ and psych fuzz guitar work, and range from garagey, Nuggetsy fare a la the Electric Prunes to more orchestrated lite-psych, with some trippy interludes of surreal '60s silliness. The first track on side one, "$5 A Ticket" deserves minor hit status, we think (and no, of course it's not a song about going to a Fugazi show!). And they do a really great, uniquely laid-back and lengthy version of the oft-covered "Tobacco Road".
One thing that makes this band something special is the voice of rhythm guitarist Randy Winburn, who sings lead on a lot of these tracks. Randy is indeed a fella, but his voice is high, almost weirdly womanly, contributing to the band's nice blend of dark and light here.
1971 Swedish hard rock power trio rarity, now available on cd. Pretty great heavy psych rock, kind of proggy too. Just like their first one. If you're into the heavy '70s psych that's not yet metal, you might want to check these guys out.
1972 Swedish hard rock power trio rarity, now available on cd. Pretty great heavy psych rock, kind of proggy too. With some bonus tracks, including some English language versions.
1970 Swedish hard rock power trio rarity, now available on cd. Pretty great heavy psych rock, kind of proggy too.
We hate to say it, or maybe we don't really hate to say it, but it seems like, well, you could pass a (rather draconian) law that no new music is allowed to be recorded or released, EVER, and even then, just by virtue of folks digging up and reissuing old obscure recordings from the '60s, '70s, etc., there'd still be enough awesome releases for Aquarius at least to still have a kick ass New Arrivals list of reviews every two weeks, right?? The cool reissues that keep on coming seem like proof of this. Here's the latest great example.
Long forgotten, private press, early '70s American psych-prog, rather pastoral (it's dedicated to the pagan Greek god Pan after all), masterminded by some earnest, bearded prog nerd doing his musicianly best to emulate his English/European heroes of the day, shades of Pink Floyd and King Crimson. That sorta sums up this all-instrumental album, recorded by composer William Nowik with a little help from his friends somewhere in upstate New York back in 1974. Except, that doesn't quite convey quite how fantastic and unusual Pan Symphony In E Minor really is! Possibly Nowik was into krautrock too, and we do know that the Master Musicians Of Joujouka had some influence on his musical vision of Pan.
Nowik's meticulously crafted, moody song-suites flow gorgeously, making precise sudden shifts as well. There'll be mellow rustic folkiness one moment, then -wham- it starts rockin' out with some fairly heavy guitar riffing, but then things wend and wind along further, and it's back to all-acoustic folk or jazzy bliss, but wyrd y'know, and then wyrder, with parts that are downright experimental, such as the passage towards the end of the disc which sounds like people climbing stairs while a church organ plays, followed by the sounds of a ticking clock, then plinking thumb piano...
There's just something ELSE to Nowik's music, an x-factor (the -actual- influence of Pan, perhaps?) that's hard to define but makes it more than just another obscure '70s prog effort. He takes things further, the music goes places other than where you'd expect, and dwells there longer, before heading off in another surprising direction (acoustic folky groove morphing into disjointed funk, ferinstance, at one point). But in all cases it really pulls you naturally there along with it. And it's beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. Much will appeal to fans of Six Organs of Admittance, among other acts (Citay too?), we think.
The cd booklet is filled with enthused liner notes & lots of vintage b&w photos, giving a glimpse into the album's creation and the subsequent career of its creator. Since only a mere handful of copies were originally pressed in '74, and it was barely distributed to boot, thank Pan that it's been reissued and more folks can enjoy this today.
We will note one oddity of the cd reissue: though there's 14 tracks listed, the actual disc is only indexed into 3 tracks (one very short, two quite long). Doesn't really matter though, as you should listen to the whole thing all the way through every time anyway...
NSU's record taught me (Allan) a little lesson. I came across a cd reissue of the lone LP by this obscure Scottish sixties psych band a couple years ago, and picked it up for its heaviness potential (it had been described as being really heavy by an overseas dealer). At first hearing, though, the heaviness I wanted wasn't really there. I had been hoping for a proto-metal album like, say, Toad or Leaf Hound, and so was disappointed and set the NSU aside. But then, some weeks later, I gave it another chance and, as so often happens when you aren't judging something by your wishful expectations but instead taking it on its own terms, I ended up really really liking it. I realized, this was a pretty nifty album with some marvelous songs and vibe from a pretty cool band, that while not quite competition for Black Sabbath or Blue Cheer, still operates on the cusp of proto-metal heavy, sixties style, and surely provides lots of wailing guitar! So now we're quite happy to have this in stock, a new nice digipack cd reissue of what we've come to regard as a bit of a gem, if you have any sort of a soft spot for Cream-y British '60s guitar blues psychedelia! Originally released in 1969 on Stable, the same label (and year) as the record by Lemmy's old band Sam Gopal that we love so much, and that this reminds us of just a bit, especially the more mellow and laid back parts, and they also share a penchant for lyrical subject matter that tends towards the dark and/or druggy! One song is even simply titled "Stoned".
So again, a lesson, give stuff more than one listen! You never know what you might like better then second time... We're still wondering, though: N.S.U.? What's it stand for?
Here's a special sampler disc that was intended to sell for only 99 pence in the UK; but even with the horrible exchange rate and shipping costs, Paranoia In Hi-Fi is still a reasonable $4.98 on this side of the pond. BUT! There's a catch. You have to walk in the door of Aquarius and buy this disc in person! The idea that Nurse With Wound, Dirter Promotions, and Cargo Distribution collectively had, was to encourage the multitudes of Nurse With Wound fans and newcomers to get out into the independent shops and maybe purchase something else alongside this nicely priced cd... so no mailorder for this.
Steven Stapleton of Nurse With Wound has engineered this anthology as a teasing sampler into the wild and weird world of NWW, by collaging the tracks into a seamless mix and then splicing that collage into 79 separate tracks, making it downright foolish to rip this thing into mp3s. Yup, this is a mega-mix meant to be listened to from beginning to end. True to NWW form, it's a rollercoaster of dada cut-ups, splattered noise, horrifying ambience, post-krautrock jams, and psychedelically inclined musique concrete. We do hear bits from The Sylvie & Babs Hi-Fi Companion, Homotopy To Marie, the Stereolab collaboration, Alice The Goon, the hilarious NWW mash-up with James Chance, and the Inflatable Sideshow alter ego which appropriates Black Sabbath of all things. To all of these things, we here at Aquarius once again say "Thank you, Mr. Stapleton!"
The latest from the increasingly awesome Discos Mariposa label, who have been providing release after satisfying release of Brazilian post-tropicalia rarities, is the 1972 second album from psych-progressives, O Terco. Featuring Luiz Simas from Modulo 1000 on mini-Moog, Terco starts off pretty heavy in a King Crimson fashion gradually settling into the dreamy pastoral psych that were used to from this label. Culminating in the 19 minute collage suite "Amanhecer Total" ("Complete Dawn"), where female vocals, acoustic guitar and percussion meld into heavier passages of electric guitar, and aggressive singing, then shift towards lo-fi keyboards, soft piano and a mantra-inflected finale. Two bonus tracks from an earlier EP round the disc out nicely.
Michael Lloyd, the creative force behind October Country, might be more familiar to some AQ customers as a member of the legendary West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band. While OC is not nearly as drug addled and far out as the WCPAEB, their sunshine-y, shimmery soft pop, equal parts Beach Boys, Beatles and Byrds, is still flecked with hints of lysergic psychedelia and brief glimpses of jangly trippiness.
Lloyd was a musical prodigy: publishing deal at age thirteen, composed the soundtrack for Spielberg's first short film, played in a group called the New Dimensions as well as the WCPAEB. Through some random circumstances he began writing songs for the newly christened October Country (after a song he wrote, they were formerly the Last Two) and eventually became their primary songwriter and a sort of de facto band member.
The sound is light and breezy, sunny and care free. Think the Free Design, the Hollies, the aforementioned three B's. All bubby bouncy bass, jangly guitar, playfully honking horns, occasional sweeping strings, and lots of glorious harmonies.
Definitely not a 'weird' record at all, just a really awesome lost pop classic!
Reissue of obscure British pop-psych band from the early seventies. Sounds like a perfect mix between The Pretty Things and The Beatles, so if you dug the Aerovons, or Truck, you might want to check this out too. Contains their lone 1971 album, Restless Night, and ten bonus tracks, including a dead on cover of The Beatles "I Am The Walrus".
More rad psych rock reissue action here, courtesy of the Shadoks label. Their latest batch of cds delve into the prog rock past of a place known for interesting music (and volcanoes, and fairies), Iceland! Svanfridur, Trubrot, and this one, Odmenn, which we're reviewing first 'cause it's one we'd heard before, we already knew we loved it, and it's possibly the heaviest of the bunch. Poppy too, though, these songs are syncopated, swinging ear candy for those into what DJ Andy Votel over at Finders Keepers likes to call "hairy funk". The band formed in 1966, and after several years spent perfecting their groovy and rather heavy progressive blues rock, this record was to be their only full-length release. A double album, 15 tracks, originally released in 1970. All but one of the songs sung in their native Icelandic.
It's a joy, full of irresistibly loping grooves, fuzzy riffage, gentle folky parts, wild guitar solos, and lyrics pertinent to political protest and hippy ideals (so we're told, not understanding Icelandic), yeaaah! There's beautiful, blissed out melodies ("Kaerleikur") and sheer freaked out acid rock excess (the 20 minute, side-long album-ender "Frelsi") and lots of groovy stuff in between. Well, not in between those particular two tracks, as they follow one another, but in between those extremes, across the whole disc, we mean.
We'd recommend Odmenn to fans of other killer Scandinavian psychedelia such as Moses (another recent Shadoks reish), Baby Grandmothers, Mecki Mark Men, and, latterly, Dungen. And it comes with extensive liner notes, as well as vintage photos and graphics, in the thick cd booklet. Very cool.
Recorded in Nigeria in 1973, the members of Ofege were only in high school when they made this album, but damn! In any battle of the bands competition our money would for sure be on these guys! Infused with a really keen sense of melody as well as nice fuzzy guitar sounds, great drumming and catchy vocals, this is truly a lost Afro-rock gem! We first heard Ofege on the African volume of the Love Peace & Poetry series and then on the great Sound Way compilation Nigeria Rock Special, and if you are like us and can't get enough of those special sounds that were pouring out of Nigeria in the '70s, Ofege will surely hit the spot! We're reminded a bit of that great Chrissy Zebby Tembo reissue we freaked out about last year. Heavily influenced by Western rock of the time, lots of great wah wah jams and that fuzzy guitar sound we never get tired of. Pretty amazing that these guys ranged in age from 15-17 when they made this as it sounds so confident and accomplished.
Whew! Housed in a bright pink digipack, this is a seriously WEIRD reissue (or not so seriously, 'cause it's pretty silly, but weird in any case). 30 tracks, 74 minutes of pure WTF?, '70s style. A private press rarity from Baltimore, originally released in 1974, OHO's Okinawa is one of those obscure underground '70s artifacts that combine experimental prog, psych, and proto-punk into one trippy package. Deserving of whatever cult status it has, no doubt.
Some folks will be drawn to this for its garagey, manic energy and and shocking angular guitar action, but you gotta be able to deal with the gonzoid goofiness too. And unhinged vocals that even have a bit of Jello Biafra-like warble to 'em... though sometimes the singing is quite lovely, like at the outset of the song "A Frog For You", which features a chorus of voices sweetly intoning such lines as: "What's that on your face... it looks like shit... ", before some screaming begins, and someone yells, "Let's rock!", and indeed they do, (sarcastically?) channelling Chuck Berry/Jerry Lee Lewis, tossing in some Zeppish riffs too.
We'd have to assume that these musicians had some Frank Zappa and the Mothers records in their collections. But they avoid jazzy wank (though there are horns), and their hippy freak humor isn't as obnoxious as your typical Zappa fare. Less scatological, more surreal and non-sequitur. Song titles like "Ain't Life Dumb", "Brown Algae Is Attractive", "The Unfortunate Frankfurter Vendor", "Hairy Bag", "Chess Is Boring", "Fast Bananas", and "Pale Hippo" might give you some idea. Syd Barrett's Pink Floyd could be another inspiration for all this trippiness, they also kinda remind us of the Hampton Grease Band, Beefheart, and some of the wackier British prog acts of the ear.
This handsomely packaged, remastered reissue, includes a ton of bonus material recorded at the album sessions that wasn't included on the original release. We mentioned 30 tracks (some of them but brief interludes), only 16 actually appeared on the 1974 lp. But now that it's on cd, you get the entire extreme OHO Okinawa experience/overload as it was meant to be. It's acid-fried, theatrical, quite intentionally insane, and actually pretty amusing... plus prog and hard psych types will enjoy all the distorted guitar stabs and crazy changes. Fans of modern day, mathy indie pop acts like Heavy Vegetable might also dig.
Captain Trip presents Ohr's retro 60's cosmic grooves with faux mellotron samples, stoned thud rock basslines, ample wah-wah guitar phasing, and hypno-rock structures. If Circle wore paisleys.
This week the Kismet label brings us two rare sitar infused flower power psychsploitation oddities: The far-out mindwarping "children's" record for the hippie acid kids, Kali Bahlu Takes The Forest Children On A Journey of Cosmic Remembrance from 1967 (reviewed elsewhere on this list) and this 1971 sitar and electronics groover from Holland's Okko!
Just like the title suggests, this is Dutch musician, Okko Bekker composing original tunes and performing covers for Sitar and Electronics. Taking a less druggy and more groovy and jazzier tact than the Kahli Bahlu record, Bekker covers the Beatles and channels Hendrix, following the likes of Big Jim Sullivan (Lord Jim), Bill Plummer, and Gabor Szabo into pop sitar territory. This is probably a bit more heavy and far out than the others, but it still definitely falls more under the category of lounge exotica than into any head-expanding territory of its own. Though it come close on "Pointed Sails on Ganges" the most Eastern of any of the tracks offered here, and the one that most sounds like the cover looks. Still pretty damn groovy!
