CRYSTAL THOUGHTS

Tripping the light fantastic! Crystal Thoughts are the most exciting phenomena to occur in the spacetime continuum since cosmologist Carl Sagan first took us on a fantastic voyage of discovery across the Cosmos in his eponymous TV series and book. This incredible album is a cosmic journey of the mind though, only without the psilocybe effect of eating magic mushrooms, and yes, they are indeed toxic, so they're best avoided if you see them growing in your local magical forest. Crystal Thoughts are one of the most obscure and enigmatic outfits ever to emerge from the Greek archipelago, with psychedelic folk music as wide and expansive as one of Demis Roussos' colourful kaftans. Crystal Thoughts only recorded this one outstanding album, and then just as mysteriously disappeared forever and ever into the cosmic aether, elevating the album to instant classic status. Finding this ultra-rare album for sale in your local record store would be almost as amazing as finding the Ark of the Covenant on sale at your local antiques shop. This transcendental treat won't help you escape the surly bonds of Earth, but it may lift your spirits high enough to almost touch the face of the prog gods on Mount Olympus. "Toxic Phenomena in Kosmic Fields" takes us on a magic carpet ride back through time, back to those hazy lazy halcyon days of flowers and beads and butterflies in a psychedelic Garden of Eden, when being gay just meant being happy and carefree. This lovely album has all the glowing warmth of the Mediterranean, combined with the mystery and exoticism of the ancient casbah and with inscrutable song titles as colourful as a florilegium. It's not crystal clear what the final album track "Carovna Pistalka" refers to, but it appears to be a Greek children's fairy tale, and after listening to this beautifully mellow album of spaced-out meditative moods, then maybe you too will believe there are fairies at the bottom of the garden. Then again, maybe not. Either way, this spacey and hypnotic album is as chilled out as a dry vodka Martini, shaken not stirred. "Kosmic Fields" is a good solid album of Grecian alabaster marble and a real diamond gem of psych-folk - and you know what they say about diamonds and longevity.

Guess this album might be CRYSTAL THOUGHTS' (especially the frontman Spiros') interpretation upon the 'current' acid folk.

CRYSTAL THOUGHTS, founded in 1999 as an acid folk duo by Spiros ROUCHOTAS and Vassilis STAVRIANAKOS but disbanded in the following year, were reformed under the same moniker as another quartet by Spiros. Finally in 2011 they have released their debut creation "Toxic Phenomena In Kosmic Fields", featuring four new tracks, and one recorded in their beginning era.

At the same time, they should consider 'streaming and floating' pretty important, and have played and recorded much carefully. They can amazingly come out with mellow, meditative, meaningful darkness and freshness in their soundscape, that sometimes sounds like mind-altering space rock like Pink Floyd for me but basically steady (namely, not whacked-out like Furek'ben) acid-folksy colour comes to the fore. Cannot know whether I can call their primeval-flavoured melody line as Greek one or not, but their ethnic history or life should create such a deeply mysterious line. The first track "Kosmic Journey" sounds exactly cosmic / hypnotic / spacey, deeply in the core of meditation journey of their mind with altered states. "Psilocybe Effect" has definite acid folk depth and width with expanding sound echoes and eccentric voices by a sound effector - a bit inorganic and awkward though.

The titled track, the beginning of the B side, expresses another acid tour overlapped with typical folk pop scene, that indeed reminds me an early-1970s Japanese acid folk project Folk Crusaders (especially "Imjin River"). Female voices and cloudy flute solos are quite beautiful and tragic in "Tear Of An Elephant" - this stuff sounds a bit different from the other 'dark / spacey acid folk' for me. Don't know in detail why it sounds so honestly, but I guess this song should have more definite 'progressive folk' structural essence here and there than others. The last shortest one "Carovna Pistalka" can be suitable for the epilogue of this album, with sharp-edged acoustic guitar, flute, and female narration (so graceful!) combo. Cool, delightful air is left around me after listening to this album really.