A MONSTROUS PSYCHEDELIC BUBBLE

'A Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble' begins with those words and does not stop it's mind altering mayhem until the last song. This is one of those compilation CDs that come with a magazine,which are usually patchy at best. In this case it is the much celebrated UK "Mojo" magazine and occasionally they get it right. This CD is definitely an ear opener with some of the best psych prog I have ever heard. Psychedelic prog offers a plethora of styles from the high strangeness of Shogun Kunitoki to the downright dark doom psych of Comus. In this compilation there is a delightful uninterrupted beautifully mixed selection that gives a great overall impression of the psych scene.

The tracks are unedited and seamlessly edited together by The Amorphous Androgynous, and two of their tracks are featured and are genuinely psychedelically sonic and adventurous. 'Falling Down' was written by Noel Gallagher and is replete with Eastern Indian sitar music. Throughout the CD there are voices that echo and merge with the music to add to the hyper acid rock. The other prog tracks include The Yellow Moon Band's 'Entangled', and the instrumental by Dungen, 'Satt Att Se' with a free-form, flowing structure and some excellent guitar licks. Krautrock pioneers Can are here with 'Flow Motion' that features guitar hooks and spontaneous emotive nuances with mumbled words and a strong almost reggae beat.

The choice cut from Comus is 'Diana', a very dark ditty dealing with death, that pushes boundaries of psych folk by incorporating murderous themes and disturbing lyrical content, Diana comes lurking "through the steaming woodlands" and there is some wonderful violins and frenetic tom tom drumming on this adding to the ominous atmosphere. Shogun Kunitoki present 'Mulberg' with huge mind expanding sonic vibrations using loud keyboards, and the free form style is refreshing. The CD ends with The Amorphous Androgynous' space rocker 'Opus Of The Black Sun', featuring slide guitar and atmospherics that create an ethereal ambience. There is an interesting narration about how psych prog has made an impact over the years and it is all over.

There are other psychedelic tracks that are not prog but they are quite intriguing in their own way, namely, Pop Levi's 'Blue Honey' with it's Hawkwind style riff and weird spacey music, the single from July, 'Dandelion Seeds', which begins with manic laughter and has a kind of phased out vocal effect in 1968 style, and the weird Betty Davis with 'Game Is My Middle Name', with a killer riff and very aggressive downbeat singing, "do me in, do me in if you can do it now."

I did not think too much of Ed Askew's repetitious and droning 'Love Is Everyone', bad angst ridden singing and crickets chirping with a mandolin, or the excruciating White Noise's 'Love Without Sound', which is similar in style to The Residents, and even features a crazed laughing lunatic, but 'Les Mouches' by Jean Claude Vannie is very trippy and worth a listen, featuring Eastern flavoured music. Donovan's 'Three King Fishers' is a classic with quirky lyrics and I have seen this featured many times on psych compilations.

So there you have it, not a bad freebie if you can get hold of it. I like the way it segues together and the transitions are compelling and create one long seamless track so this masks some of the weaker tracks. The CD is better than the mag itself, lots of prog samples, and a true record of the unsettling psychedelic scene through history. 3 psychedelic stars.