MAGIC CARPET

This group fusions to their sound both authentic Indian raga music and Western bluesy folk rock tones. For me the highlight of this album was the final nearly twenty minutes long raga, which is quite purist in its style, containing only sitar and tablas improvising together. This fact leads to a conclusion that the blending of these elements with psychedelic rock patterns did not work so well for me. However the album is quite lovely hippie artifact, and I admit my own adoration to the used concepts, however the end result would not be most optimal. The songs are quite short, not maybe exploiting totally the possibilities of the capabilities of stoned hippy freak-out territories, being quite simple from their structure and focusing to repetitive mannerism. There are also some fade-outs used in the songs endings, even in the long raga, which I found slightly sad solutions, leaving the musical progressions unfinished without goal, and leaving open questions did the tape ran out or did the musicians lose control in the end? Anyway, with the satisfying moments on the album, at their best these musicians created accessible, laid back and pleasant flower power musical patters. If you like Indian music and psychedelic folk, I think this record would be a good target to be checked out. The voice of the lady singer reminds both Grace Slick and the singer from the German group Carol of Harvest. In addition of CD reissue and rare original LP, the album has been reissued as limited edition LP also.