It's Psychedelic Baby Magazine: January 2017

Ross Beattie presents It's Psychedelic Baby podcast #11 (February)

A brand new podcast hosted by Ross Beattie (The Night Tripper)

The Dynamites - Tunnel To Heaven

Psychic Lemon - Death Cult Blues

The Tangerine Zoo - Confusion

Damo Suzuki's Network - L'azienda Che Fa Tutto

Trees - Streets Of Derry

The Deviants - Last Man

The Spiral Electric - Loose Ends

Twentieth Century Zoo - It's All In My Head

Comacozer - Illumination Cloud

The Asteroid #4 - Dead Blue

Colour Haze - To The Highest Gods We Know

Kevin Ayers - Song From The Bottom Of A Well

William Tyler - Hermit Kingdom

Kawabata Makoto & The Mothers Of Invasion - Theme Of Hot Rattlesnakes

I remember it well…

“I’d like to do a song of great social and political import!”

A statement of intent if ever you heard one.

“It goes like this…”

Mushroom With Eddie Gale - Joint Happening (Hyena Records, 2007)

Depending on your point of view, this is either a very majestic well thought out experimental body of work that infuses aspects of funk, free form jazz and Krautrock, or it’s a psychedelic trip gone sideways that may just profoundly affect what you decide to ingest for the rest of your life … though for the life of me, as good as this bit of wax is, I don’t hear, or get the psychedelic manifestations.

It's Psychedelic Baby presents: Shadow Brother - Keep Going premiere

Jeff and I started playing together in college and added Jake into the fold not long after. We’ve been playing and recording together ever since. Even when we explored other projects and pursuits we always continued to collaborate on a number of recording projects. After Jeff’s move back home to New Orleans, and Jake’s move to NYC a few years later we had to find a way to keep working together and Shadow Brother evolved out of this long distance collaboration.

LSD and the Search for God - Heaven Is a Place (Deep Space Recordings, 2016)

Riding low, with even neon-blue being too bright for LSD and the Search for God, the band wash their music in ethereal pastels and dripping water colours, lacing in hushed whispery lyrics designed to bring the melodic atmospheric melody front and center.

Greg “Stackhouse” Prevost - Universal Vagrant (Mean Disposition CD/LP, 2016)

https://gregstackhouseprevost.bandcamp.com/album/universal-vagrant

Just to give some context for those who may still perhaps be unfamiliar with this one-of-a-kind artist, Greg Prevost was, as many will recall, the lead vocalist, harmonica blaster, tambourine smasher, mike stand demolisher and all-round chief instigator/spirit who led Rochester, NY, USA’s The Chesterfield Kings; one of most authentic 60s-infatuated garage-punk rock’n’roll combo’s this lonely planet boy has ever happened across.

It's Psychedelic Baby presents: Evil Triplet - Pyramids premiere

The band is fronted by vocalist/guitarist Steve Marsh, former member of late 70s-early 80s Texas punk progenitors Terminal Mind, part of the seminal scene that launched The Big Boys and The Dicks. Taking that scene’s no b.s. DIY aesthetic and Austin musicians’ beautifully twisted approach to songwriting, Evil Triplet is a fun and weird foray into a different form of punk space rock and heavy psych. Double LP on Super Secret Records in February.

Mick Softley: Any Mother Doesn’t Grumble

(Cherry Red / Morello Records MRLL 65, 41.18)

At last a classic of the time before the Punk dam burst has a first CD release, from an era when a singer-songwriter could get a three-LP contract and residential studio time from global labels to do what they want, backed by the cream of session musicians. Thanks to Cherry Red for listening to recommenders like this writer, Mick Softley’s magnum opus is now issued in fine audio quality, guitar taps and fingers leaving the strings included!

Dedicated to British psychedelic folk. New issue of printed version projected from the well-known, leading psych on-line site It’s Psychedelic Baby. After the previous issue covering exclusively the US psychedelic folk scene (IPB 002, 2016), this new issue covers the 1960s and 1970s British folk scene, with exclusive interviews of members from acts such as Fresh Maggots, Comus, Mellow Candle, Dr Strangely Strange, Spirogyra, C.O.B., Incredible String Band, Fairport Convention, Pererin, Courtyard Music Group, Magic Carpet, Sunforest, Oberon, etc. Also includes a few pages of record reviews. Cover by Justin Jackley. Publisher: Guerssen Records

Available at:

Guerssen Records

https://www.spincds.com

http://www.clear-spot.nl

for USA readers:

http://www.forcedexposure.com

JAZZ CORNER Presents: Pharoah Sanders - Black Unity (1971)

During the 1960s, many new and exciting musical movements emerged. Psychedelic rock is of course the first that comes to mind, but it was also the decade of a new kind of jazz music, where the musicians tried to get rid of the old rules of the genre to create transcendental sounds: free jazz.

Saxophonist Pharoah Sanders is one of the most well-known representatives of this genre. Originally playing for John Coltrane, most notably on his masterpiece Ascension, Sanders then created his own band to bring to the world his vision of a universal black music, expressed through the form of free jazz.

Marvin Gardens - 1968 (High Moon CD/2xLP)

I’m sure I’ve said this before but it’s something worth repeating ... don’t you just love it when you’ve been hit by a new, never heard before, or sometimes never even heard of group who were in operation during the glorious 1964-70 heyday and, after having had a good listen through what they’ve left behind, you get to thinking, wow, they’re really quite something. Of course we’ve been very fortunate with quite a few of these golden-style musical excavations that’ve come to our attention through dilligent conduits over the last few years or so.

What Pink Floyd did on what’s considered their ‘breakout’ album, was for the first time, to find a collective voice, and collaborate full throttle, creating a sort of musical bridge between their earlier works, and what was to become their triumphant earth shattering release Dark Side Of The Moon.

Snake Eye Rises Out Of Red Dirt

Snake Eye The Journey (Angel Air SJPCD 493; 54.13)

Just released is a recording by an obscure band Snake Eye, but it’s got a tale to tell and the only sting was done to them. Aficionados of rare blues rock with a psych feel will know the name Red Dirt, who were leased to a major 60’s label—by a studio label!—but only released 200 units which now can fetch four figures in the collectors’ market. The name even spawned a genre of dirty rock stateside—but guess who were there first? With the kind help of a founder member of Snake Eye, who joined Red Dirt after their debut, let’s dust off our piths and hack through the overgrowth for a clearer view.

Mystery and rumors have swirled like hazy blue smoke around this very enchanting privately released limited edition bit of folk rock psychedelia since it first slid onto the scene back in 1976 … being the brainchild of Phil Pearlman. [Editor’s note: Phil Pearlman was member of The Beat Of The Earth, The Electronic Hole]

“Music is never a fixed thing”

With the Along The Belt, Around The Bend tape, Ulrich Rois made a beautiful banjo record between folk and avant-garde.

Why did you decide to make this record as a solo record? Did you feel like you made kind of a full circle (because your first Bird People records were solo recordings too)?

Bird People kind of started as a solo project but actually the first few recordings are with a band line-up and more song-oriented than the stuff I did in the last few years. I had fun doing Bird People as a solo project but a while ago I realized that the kind of music I want to make with that project really needs the social and musical interaction with other people. So Bird People is now an open collective with shifting line-ups but I don’t do it solo anymore. Therefore, I wanted to have another outlet for the music I make on my own.

“You’re allowed to turn your faults into your charms”

With Croaks, Angela Sawyer made an album with 2 side-long tracks, using only one instrument: her own voice.

Why did you want to make a voice record?

I use voice a lot, because I have a wider range of resources there than I do with some other instruments. I think of music as something you make primarily with your head (as opposed to your hands), so any instrument or even using no instruments is always an option.

I have a whole lot of art theories about how the different parts of your head have to work together to make something. That’s mostly just because I’m a big fan of theories in general. However, I also happen to have a weird sinus cavity, which gives my voice a lot of ‘color’. It’s extremely whiny up in the nasal register, and very unresonant at the bottom end where people sound like frogs. Lots of textural ambiguities arise when you chop off the first milliseconds or last half of a typical sound, and although there are lots of vocal skills I’m bad at (terrible breath control, e.g., Galas could choke me out in seconds flat), I’m pretty good at that chopping and color stuff, which is also known as tone.

Sometimes, at the oddest moments, I find myself thinking of Don Shinn, and wondering what he’s doing today.

It would be easy to say that Don Shinn was capitalizing on the headiness of the 60’s with the implications of this album’s title, yet if you consider the fact that the man was a musical genius, who in 1966 not only pioneered, but forged the progressive rock organ template, one that would bring fame to Atomic Rooster, and of course Keith Emerson [then of The Nice, and later with ELP] it’s rather prophetically sad that Don Shinn should sit in the corner almost unrecognized to this day for the groundbreaking work he laid down. Shinn, while not psychedelic in nature, did speak to the times with his flowering flowing presentations that momentarily captured the attention of audiences as an opening act, and was instantly forgotten as soon as the headliners took the stage.

A Love Supreme is a very special album, even in the large scope of John Coltrane’s work. Bearing resemblance with the post-bop style of its time, it is nonetheless absolutely innovative, without ever going to full-on free jazz territory. It is most of all the work of an enlightened mind, who, after years of confusion, finally finds peace of mind and discovers the power of the Universal oneness, Tat Tvam Asi, the Love Supreme.

It's Psychedelic Baby presents: Holy Monitor - Bed Of The Earth premiere

Holy Monitor is a music collective that blends space rock with repeatable psyched riffs & beats and ambient music sensibility. They are based in Athens, Greece and they have released two EPs Golden Light and Aeolus. Their lyrical themes are tripping from Greek ancient mythology to the small scale structure of the universe.

Ross Beattie presents It's Psychedelic Baby podcast #10 (January)

A brand new podcast hosted by Ross Beattie (The Night Tripper)

Kaleidoscope - Music

Gong - Fohat Digs Holes In Space

Creme Soda - Numero Uno

Matching Mole - Part Of The Dance

Petra Haden - I Can See For Miles

Lungfish - Slip Of Existence

Os Brazões - Modulo Lunar

The Brian Jonestown Massacre - The Sun Ship

Pugh Rogefeldt - Stinsen I Bro

Earth - Old Black

David Lynch - The Ballad Of Hollis Brown

The Human Beinz - April 15th

Giant Squid - Octopus

Suzuki Junzo - If I Die Before I Wake

A huge attic of latest arrivals to end 2016. You might find some very interesting albums. Enjoy browsing through it.

I had just quit playing bass in the John Butler Trio in late 2001 and was living in my van between Melbourne and Byron Bay. I had met Grant Smith, The Katamaran drummer/percussionist and we had formed a busking/street duo with myself on the double bass. Grant and I rolled into a festival at Bald Rock in Northern NSW near Tenterfeild. At the Festival we met Mark Hoffman the didi player known as EMDEE. We immediately had a strong musical connection. We spent that summer playing and busking around Byron Bay and Brisbane. EMDEE is a highly motivated individual and a good business person. He created a finical model where by we would busk to get cash, pull it and record a demo at someones home studio, burn CDs. photo copy the covers, go back out on the street and make more money than before by selling of the demo’s.

Psychedelic Folk issue available

Dedicated to British psychedelic folk. New issue of printed version projected from the well-known, leading psych on-line site It’s Psychedelic Baby. After the previous issue covering exclusively the US psychedelic folk scene (IPB 002, 2016), this new issue covers the 1960s and 1970s British folk scene, with exclusive interviews of members from acts such as Fresh Maggots, Comus, Mellow Candle, Dr Strangely Strange, Spirogyra, C.O.B., Incredible String Band, Fairport Convention, Pererin, Courtyard Music Group, Magic Carpet, Sunforest, Oberon, etc. Also includes a few pages of record reviews. Cover by Justin Jackley.

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