The Psych Rock Lounge

Speaking of dark-trip music,
is it not rather curious that in any forum discussion of psych you cannot let it go without bringing-up, BRAINTICKET "COTTONWOODHILL" lp?

Even more curious that - dammit! - this is not coming out of US (or even UK), but Switzerland (or was it Austria? - I forget. Welll...Van Droogenbrogen-wotsit was Belgian. THAT I do know.)

Yes, it is a '72 release, so, PLEASE I do not want to be arguing minutea like this can't be cornerstone psych. That is granted, okay?

"Only listen once a day to this record. Your brain might be destroyed! Hallelujah Records takes no responsibility." So goes the parental warning stuck on the back of the orig lp.

It starts with two, rather lame tracks (compared to the onslaught that is coming on the remainder (one and a half sides) of the lp.
Then it starts: the interminable 25 minutes of repeated Hammond mind-bore, the total female voice freakout.


We all know this legendary record (well, let us say collectors of Mars Volta probably do not).
I want however to take this oportunity to do a mini-review on their cd, just out, "Future, Past and Present" (I hope I got that title correct.)

Its been 15 years since their last release "Alchemic Universe". So this was a MOST- AVIDLY awaited release.
Gone are all the Tangerine Dream moves of "Alchemic" and "Adventure". But - we all want to know - is gone the sheer Madness of "Cottonwoodhill".
Well...yes.
But, compositionally, it is a definite return.

Just like history is but a chronicle of reiteration, all music is derived from previous musics. Evolution involves a lot of repetition. Nothing is inovative.Its just bands in the grip of their delusion, beleiving they are not derivative.

"Past,Present,Future" is deffo derivative of the fiorst release. "Dancing On the Volcano arts One and two" comprise over 30 minutes of the 75 minute cd. And, yes, its all basically repeated line - only this time round its not Hammond.
Where it differs from the psychedelica of the first lp, is that its now more prog-fusiony. Very well done, mind. Like the recent Gong lp, the band leader evidently took great care in bringing in top musicians.

On the minus side, the cd has much female narration.
This gets to be too much as we move towards the last two tracks of the cd. One is a long spoken (over music, of course) ramble on a story from Egyptian mythology. The last track is - curiously enough - blues-based and has the woman repeating the same line OVER AND OVER: "What have we done...What have we done?"

Overall, I recommend you all this cd.
But dont accept as dark a trip as The Legend.

Kayleur wrote: Yeah, you are correct. Days Of Future Passed is one long acid freak-out.

Once again, you missed the point of the post. DOFP was the "come down" album at the end of an acid party, not an acid freak-out itself. That honor would go to other albums like the following.

Peak Hour is psychedelic.
Its psychedelic in a sorta beat Go Too sorta...erm sorta way.




(Damn, I'm playing devil's advocate again.)

Squabbles aside, one important thing I hope we all agree on: it is a masterwork of MELODIC composition. Two/three tracks here that I'm CERTAIN a fair lot of us would be desirous of having composed ourselves.


It is always strange to me that you have group masterpieces like this , but when the artists go solo they just go ordinary at once. Has anyone anything good to say of Hayward's solo lps - or, say, Art Garfunkel's?
They are just women's-pap records, far, far from the earlier heights.

SteveG wrote: So to me, Days Of Future Past will always remain the greatest Psychedelic Rock album ever made. Something that will always strike me as ironic, because unlike following Moody Blues albums that are chuck full of sitar and period studio effects, DOFP was never meant to be one.

Kayleur wrote: Well Dr Wu, Days Of Future Passed also has been remarked as having a very trippy coverart - yet its not psych. .... Steve: Romantic-era orchestration is the polar opposite of psych. Bring in the orchestra and you have instant division. Is "Conquistador" psych? Is the epic Van Dyke Parks' "Song Cycle" ('68) psychedelic? Is Neon Philharmonic? No, because classical EATS UP psych. (Whereas it cuddles up to prog.) Sure, you have things like (the first rock opera) November 1967's Electric Prunes "Mass In F Minor" * but here (as is the case with Deep Purple Albert Hall lp) the orchestra is in battle/ at odds with the rock. From this early period you could easily reference "5 Bridges" The Nice as well. It has been remarked more than once how with Moodies DOFP -although the meld between two pop songs that consitute The Dusk section is perfect/nigh seamless - the beat rock and balladry just doesn't fit proper against the classical. There is a divide. *Offenbach "St Chrone de Neant" comes to mind as well, but as memory serves that one did not have a battling orchestra.

I don't really have time to teach Psych Rock 101 but I'll give you a brief rundown on it's development in 1967. As no template yet existed for what construed, what we some 50 years later refer to as Psychedelic Rock, it was normal practice to include albums that were deemed psychedelic by adoption or by proxy. In other words, aside from what the Beatles would define as psychedelic rock, albums that naturally fell into acid Freak Outs/Ins such as Days Of Future Passed were adopted into the 1967 Psychedelic Rock canon. After December 31st 0f 1967, Psychedelic Rock was basically defined as having standard model, tonal and harmonic qualities with non standard song structures, along with an array of non musical identifiers such as studio tape effects and signal processing.

Edited by SteveG - February 23 2015 at 19:06

^ Hmmm, just found evidence that he did think ELP a waste. I guess they were just that bonkers.

^ Since when did Peel savage Genesis and ELP? He was always one to hold up and play all sorts of music, and he started with psych and prog.

I just discovered Tame Impala the other day and I'm hooked.  The spacey vibe with the Lennon-esque vocals just blends perfectly.  I'll have to pick up both of their albums before my trip to Europe next week. 

An interesting link showing what was released in '67