SURREALISTIC PILLOW

First JA album (but their second overall) to have the classic line-up, this album is really one of the cornerstones of psychedelic rock, the album that literally made the Haight-Ashbury scene, the album that put San Fran on the rock map, one of those albums that equalled any album of The Beatles' influence, the album that allows all superlatives (including the launch of The Summer Of Love) without too much a feeling of exaggeration. Of course, the album might have aged a little, might seem a little tame with what came after it. But the young proghead must wonder: what if this album had not come through? Of course in terms of English psych/prog, there were albums that were definitely more adventurous, progressive, but none that really had an international impact as Surrealistic Pillow did.

Of course Pillow is still an album that suffered technical limitations of the era, relatively tight rules of record label, and there are some rather standard tracks such as My Best Friend (still written by ex-"drummer" Skip Spence), Today (and its extreme hippy ideals of just living one day at a time on delightful drum rolls), 3/5 Of A Mile (a rocker built over a steady beat) and their monstrous hit Somebody To Love.

But on the other hand, this album is loaded with spine tingling moments, great musicianship, and novel ideas. Right from hearing the drum intro (Dryden is a jazz-trained drummer) of She Has Funny Cars leading to a descending bass line (Jack Casady is a master of the bass and helped write the book of rock bass playing with Jack Bruce and John Entwistle), you are well aware that things will "degenerate" into greatness: forty second into the track a superb succession of chord changes and the tracks picks -up again with Kantner and Balin going about their duo singing, and coming from the back Slicks comes with her incredibly sensual voice turns, twist, twiddles and circles around the males voices like she was their lovers (not yet in real life ;-) and performing oral lovemaking. Barely over three minutes, this song is one of more emblematic the Airplane ever did, but there would be so many more to come. Coming Back To Me is one of those incredibly delicate moments where Grace with her recorder (there were very few pop records using flutes prior to this album) underline's Balin superb vocals (with a bit of imagination, this might just recall you a bit Crimson's I Talk To the Wind) and an unusual length.

How Do You Feel is another flute-laden track. Embryonic Journey is the kind of track that will lead future Steve Hs to do acoustic pieces on their group's album some five years later, and Kaukonen finally gets a chance to strut his stuff, and then comes the other nail into the wall structure of rock music: White Rabbit! What hasn't been said about this outstanding and astounding track? Yes it refers to Alice In Wonderland; yes, it has incredible tension based on Spanish influences; yes, Casady's bass intro is close to eighth wonder; yes, this is a bolero some four years before Crimson and ELP; yes, this track is MUCH TOO SHORT for its greatness. The album finishes on an ode to the dildo over a square beat, but a swirling bass line, and whistles enlighten it.

The bonus tracks that came with the definitive remastered versions are worthy and belonged to the recording sessions of this album, but do not really bring a plus, except in showing the blues side of the group (three tracks of the four real bonus) that would clearly later evolve in the offshoot Hot Tuna with the large jam improvs between Casady, Kaukonen and Dryden. Of special interest to frequent Airplane flyers is the superb Go To Her. Also included are the mono single versions of the two monster songs of the album.

Overall, nowadays it is easy to overlook this album's real merits and dismiss it as just another good album, but retrospectively and looking back, this album was absolutely groundbreaking as would their next four albums, all recorded with the classic quintet. Not flawless, and certainly not full-blown prog-rock, but damn well essential to its birth.