REALITY D BLIPCROTCH

This 10" LP contains two songs and a funny cartoon, describing the life of the band's players whose musical collaboration's tenth anniversary this release celebrates. "The Drifter" on the A-side begins with a bluesy space jam, and morphs as a really beautiful, slow acid rock ballad. I think this song easily crystalizes as one of the major compositions of the group, showing their major stylist elements and creating powerful emotional impact. The more dynamic first part emphasizes the strength of ethereal flotation sequence, and the short verse recited on several subtle frequencies is easy to sympathize as one pivotal era on a man's life. The other side of the vinyl has an acoustic ballad, which lyrics are more directly about "The Players in The Band". This wasn't as good song as the previous one, but still fine, flowing freely the guitar chords and singing at the psychedelic camp fire. As together they form fine union of middle-aged realizations from both individual's perspective and as a band. The album covers are also neat in their 1960's vintage graphic style. I would recommend this release to fuzz vinyl freaks and adorers of psychedelic music.

This is one of the nicer packaged 10" EP records I've obtained. The artwork is very colorful and the cover is of high production quality. And unlike some of the thin vinyl 10" singles in my collection, this is a nice and thick slab of vinyl. The album even comes with a nice reprint of some original comic strip cartoon artwork, though I confess I haven't read it yet.

As for the music itself, it has some similarities to early Pink Floyd. In fact, the end half of The Drifter sounds very much like the ending of A Saucerful of Secrets. However, tSM add some vocals in a breathy style that are quite pleasant versus the usually bombastic, freakout music. There's a nice, tasty fuzz toned blues solo which follows. It just screams David Gilmour, yet is sufficiently different not to be a clone. This song is worth the price of admission all by itself.

The Players in the Band is another song with vocals (a rarity among tSM songs I've heard so far) using acoustic guitars. It has a similar vibe to something like Fat Old Sun or the softer material on the Obscured by the Clouds soundtrack. The vocals are processed with some echo and a skybox effect and some lighter backing vocals sung in harmony.

Having gone back and listend to my pre-DSotM recordings by Pink Floyd, I can definitely say tSM are highly influenced by this period of music. But at the same time they are also different. The PF material actually sounds crisper and more produced, where as tSM come across as more organic. I can hear elements of PF's studio style in their work. However I hear more of PF's live style and I think that stems from my 15+ years collecting PF live recordings and subsquent familiarity.

All in all I'd say this is some pretty cool music, even if it is only a 30min EP with two songs. However, if you are lucky enough to get a good condition version of this EP with the great packaging, it is a most worthwhile investment in money and time.