COTTONWOODHILL

Perhaps one of the most radical recordings I've got in my collection. This is basically a different BRANTICKET with just flutist/organist Joël Vandroogenbroeck the only person in common with all their following albums. Even percussionist Barney Palm isn't present. You get future members of a band called TOAD, as well as Dawn Muir. The first two cuts, seem pretty tame. You get "Black Sand" which is an instrumental piece with organ. "Places of Light" features more great organ work, while Dawn Muir spouts out some psychedelic poetry. Nothing too much more radical than the prog and psych you expect from the time. But it's the other 2/3 of the album, entitled "Brainticket" that justifies the radical nature of the album. It's basically one fuzz organ riff repeated over and over with Dawn Muir under a serious psychedelic orgasm, tons and tons of electronic effects, sounds of jackhammers, electronic sirens that never lets up.

My mother thought I was completely out of my mind for listening to this, and she was used to hearing some of my other more radical albums like TANGERINE DREAM's "Zeit". This experience obviously broke the band up. Several of the other guys went and joined future Island (as in the 1977 prog album Pictures) guy Benjamin Jäger and formed the more conventional hard rock band TOAD, while Vandroogenbroeck simply assembled a new BRAINTICKET, and gave us "Psychonaut" which was a reaction against "Cottonwoodhill". Of course, "Cottonwoodhill" will not be to everyone's taste, I don't recommend this around children, or anyone with a weak stomach. But for those who want something outrageous, get this album.