CAN AM DES PUIG

The inspiration was primarily drawn from Juan Arkotxa and Leslie Mackenzie who left London in 1971 and traveled through various countries including Yugoslavia, Portugal, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Mexico and most of all, India where the couple attended the coronation of the Dalai Lama. In 1975 the couple moved to Ibiza, Spain and created their first book of prints titled "The Garland of Visions of the Absolute" which sold well in the spiritual community and led to the creation of the even more majestic vision that would become the CAN AM DES PUIG (Book of Am). At first the entire CAN AM DES PUIG project wasn't intended to be a musical journey at all but rather as a 144-page book which integrated the themes of the Taliesin, Mabinogion, the Edda, the Book of the Dead of the Ancient Egyptians, the papyrus of Ani, the texts of the pyramids, the book of breaths, the Theogony , the Bible, the songs of Milarepa, the poems of Kabîr, those of William Blake and the Veda amongst others. The texts were grouped into four parts: Dawn, Morning, Afternoon and Night.

More than a simple compilation of mystical texts, the reader can follow a vague story, that of an initiation which aims to show all the common points existing between religious and philosophical texts. The watercolors which illustrate each page mixed elements of religious works and plants. Initially once relocating to the remoteness of Deiá on the north shore of Mallorca, Arkotxa and Mackenzie together with friends began to improvise musical scores for the book with various tracks inspired by the diverse subject matter. Living as a primitive commune without electricity the members never considered recording the songs as a musical score to their own version of a sacred tome of knowledge but after the book publishing project fell through due to the fact that the collective's ambitions were too complex for the printing techniques of the era, the book idea was scrapped and in its stead CAN AM DES PUIG decided to record its improvisational songs that it had created as ceremonial music based on the book's intricate material. This is where Daevid Allen stepped in and he helped the band record and produce their one and only album to emerge in the 1970s.

To say this was an ambitious project is an understatement. The collective's original objective was to record four album's worth of material: Dawn, Morning, Afternoon, Night, to accompany the massive book but with no book and limited resources the only artistic statement that emerged during the 1970s was the first part of the sage THE BOOK OF AM, PART ONE: DAWN AND MORNING. While this first chapter would emerge in 1978 on the small Disque Labo label the band's aspirations were never extinguished by the seemingly endless obstacles that prevented their massive project from materializing. While the bulk of the four parts were written during the 1970s, they wouldn't all be recorded until 2012. The 2006 reissue of this album featured the second part as well as finally seeing the first publication of the book that inspired it all. In 2017 the entire 4 parts would finally see the light of day as "Book of Am Parts I~IV." The entire project was completed with the help of numerous session musicians.

Musically speaking this album and the ones that follow reflect a very mellow style of psychedelic folk that often merges with raga rock. The music was totally created in an environment without electricity so this is basically as down to Earth as it gets for constructing musical themes that reflect a larger philosophical narrative. If you simply approach this with no context then the music will sound very simplistic, often a sole acoustic guitar accompanied by a vocalist or two with the occasional accompaniment of a sitar, a flute and the occasional tambourine and percussion. It's very transcendental and is primarily inspired by the most sacred texts that use minimalism to evoke timelessness and oneness. It's also important to keep in mind that the individual tracks were designed to accompany various passages in the great book itself and therefore would best be appreciated in conjunct with it, however since the actual physical book and its four accompanying musical segments were limited to 300 copies, it's unlikely many will find their hands clutching the actual physical project.

Since i have not seen the book i can only rate this one solely on the music which indeed is simplistic musically speaking. I does however evoke a deep spiritual sense of awe and the atman and egregor of magical and occult traditions that have been coalesced into a great work that this collective released as CAN AM DES PUIG. In other words, this is a hella trippy journey into the human psyche via gentle folk musical expressions augmented by psychedelic embellishments that transfix the very soul into a state of euphoric rapture and captures the intended essence of the entire hippie movement in its purity before the marketing executives and excess drug use altered the journey of consciousness expansion. For all these reasons and more, CAM AM DES PUIG's contributions are perhaps the most magnanimous of all of the hippie psychedelic musical art forms that emerged in the 1960s and 1970s and was also perhaps the logical conclusion of the era that for the most part had fizzled out by the 1970s. The following three parts may have come later but the entire four part series flows together seamlessly and evokes the timelessness and universality of the human spirit constructing its own version of nirvana. This is an utterly unique contribution to the world of psychedelic folk and one that must be experienced to be fully comprehended.