PSYCHONAUT

Killer acid-head-like psychedelia which would make the perfect sonic companion for your household lava lamp. BRAINTICKET's second release is less electric than their debut album and slighly less psychedelic. "Psychonaut" is a chilled-out psychedelic gem which must adorn your collection above the mantle piece. "Psychonaut" is full of warped yet clever music which moves from the soft canvess of "One Morning" to the heavy instrumental psyched rock of Coc'o Mary. BRAINTICKET is brain food and probably deserves to be filed under ones "Stoner Rock" section. Led by keyboard giant Joel Vandroogenbroeck and female vocalist Jane Free who carries of picture perfect west-coast persona making BRAINTICKET's second release a "gotta have-it release". "Psychonaut" will take you on a 30 minute journey into regions of your mind you have never travelled before. This is uniquely enabled through their darkly crafted use of flutes, organs, guitars, wild percussive elements and loads of sound effects. All in all this is a superb psychedelic-progressive rock offering which should appeal to all good music heads out there.

This cd is a lot calmer than the first and lacks a lot of the randomness of the first. Still, this is one of the better psychedelic cds around and one that all psychedelic fans will enjoy. My only real gripe is that this cd is way to short, shorter than most of the Beatles cds even, clocking in at only 32 minutes. Still, that 32 minutes is spent in a relaxed trippy sorta feel....thats the feel i got anyways.

The original BRAINTICKET had already collapsed after the recording of "Cottonwoodhill". Some of the members went to join future member of the Swiss prog band ISLAND (who released the album "Pictures" in 1977) Benjamin Jäger, and named the group TOAD. That group sounds little like BRAINTICKET, or like a precursor of the "Island" sound, but more like conventional hard rock. Meanwhile organist/flutist Joël Vandroogenbrock simply resurrected BRAINTICKET with brand new musicians (amongst them being Carol Muriel, Barney Palm, Jane Free and others).

The result being "Psychonaut" was an obvious reaction to their previous album, as this album was the complete opposite, going for actual songs here and avoiding any disturbing experiments. "Radagacuca" is that prime example, which starts off with some trippy organ, some echoey flutes, and of course, silly lyrics. "One Morning" is a wonderful, piano oriented piece with pleasant vocals. "Watchin' You" is one of the more heavy, rocking pieces, and is by far the most rocking piece I ever heard BRAINTICKET do. "Like a Place in the Sun" features some spoken dialog, with parts reminding me of EARTH & FIRE (that's where people mistakenly think BRAINTICKET was a Dutch band, although Brainticket purposely obscure their nationality, as the band often consisted of international musicians). "Feel the Wind Blow" is a much more laid-back, acoustic piece, with George HARRISON like guitars. "Coc'o Mary" is a heavily percussion-dominated piece that sounds like a cross between SANTANA (because of the Latin-style percussion) and JETHRO TULL (because of the Anderson-like flute). Incredible album, which shows everything that was great in the early '70s!

3.5 stars really!!! Brainticket is one of those really wild group that are difficult to pin-point because of the diversity of every successive album. Aside from the awesome sleeve artwork, the average proghead would be well aware to start their investigations with this one because I would say that this is their most accessible album (among the ones I heard) and maybe their most progressive. I might suggest that you smoke a big fat doobie while you try to get into this album. The tracks are more structured than on their debut but this stays strange and requires repeated listening to understand..... that is if you have not stopped trying before. Ultimately , one will discover that it was worth it.

I would like to echo Proghead's remarks in his review that there are many confusion because there exists two Brainticket : this one and the much later Australian one. However , most people confused them as Dutch because of Brainbox (a Dutch group that was rememberd because of a focus link) and the Dutch/German prog label Brain Records. The fact that Brainticket's leader Vandroogenbroeck had a Dutch name did help confuse further more matters. there is also a great German band called Brainstorm from those same years.

BRAINTICKET basically disolved after the first "way out there" release called "Cottonwoodhill". Joel Vandroogenbroeck the organ / piano / flute player brought the band back to life though with all new members.The first album was very much a band effort but this one features all songs composed by Mr.Vandroogenbroeck. The female singer he added does sound like the lady on the first release just not as crazy.

"Radagacuca" opens with flute and spacey organ sounds. Percussion arrives a minute in until that is all you hear 2 minutes in. We get some sitar and male and female vocals 3 minutes in.The flute is back in this cool, meditative song. That is until 6 minutes in when the organ is back with guitar and drums offering up a fuller and faster sound. "One Morning" opens with the sound of a storm with rain as piano, percussion, drums and vocals create the soundscape. "Watchin' You" has a heavier sound with female vocals. The guitar is raw with drums. Reserved but heavy guitar solos arrive 2 minutes in, one of the best parts of the album. Vocals are back. The beat stops as sitar and spacey, psychedelic sounds arrive.

"Like A Place In The Sun" opens with heavy drums and powerful organ. Female vocals come in, she's speaking now. We then get a drum solo before organ comes back. She's speaking then singing before the song ends with organ and drums. "Feel The Wind Blow" is a reserved song. It opens with people talking and smoking something. Gentle guitar and female vocals before percussion joins in. The last 30 seconds features the wind blowing. "Coc'o Mary" has some cool drumming as guitar comes in and then organ. Check out the drumming though. Flute comes in as the song calms down after 3 minutes with percussion. Drums and organ are back.

For me this is a step up over the "over the top" debut. This one has some great sounding psychedelic tunes even recalling the sixties at times.

Great laid back krautrock.

One of the things I love about krautrock is that every band in the genre pretty much guarantees a unique approach to the genre and the vast majority of the bands are of the highest quality. In BRAINTICKET's sophomore album 'Psychonaut' the band has for the most part moved on from the oppressively psychedelic wailings (in a good way) of Cottonwood Hill into more laid back ethnic territory.

The album gets off to a great start with 'Radagacuca' with some mysterious organ and flute leading into a bit of bongo drumming before the main part of the song with acoustic guitar and sitar starts up. This song is great, it kinda meanders along pleasantly and the guitar starts playing some more atonal dissonant licks before the whole band drops in and we're treated to a fine psychedelic kraut jam with some great heavy organ and manic laughter. 'Like a place in the sun' is my other favourite song on this album, although I'm not the biggest fan of the chorus the heavy bass driven jamming is to die for and it's probably the closest in style to the music off 'Cottonwood Hill'.

Psychonaut also features some great production, there are a lot of little nuances and some great panning work (simple but effective) here, my personal favourite part about it is the rich, deep, dirty organ sound, probably one of my favourite organ sounds ever. Overall Psychonaut is a very solid kraut album, a bit of a departure from BRAINTICKET's earlier work but definitely a worthwhile album for any fan of krautrock.

With "Cottonwoodhill" BRAINTICKET entered the premier league of psychedelic music, but with all of its revolutionary and mind-blowing (sometimes literally!) performance it was still an acquired taste...

Then comes the "Psychonaut" - an amazing record of heavy "acid" rock empowered by folk/raga etherial sounds. There are loads of flute, keyboards and hand drums that sometime remind of another excellent band from about the same era - BROESELMASCHINE. "From Another Planet/Radagacuca" opens and draws you right away into a mind-bending world. Heavy sound of Hammond is omnipresent particularly in two heavy tracks "Watching You" and "Like the Place in the Sun", while the closing instrumental "Cock-o-Mary" brings a flute riff sounding like a continuation of "Black Sand" from the previous notable LP. I just recently checked another obscure band from the same period - BABE RUTH - and even here I found some similarities, perhaps because of female lead vocals.

This is excellent album from the classic prog era and I would highly recommend it to all self-respecting prog afficionados. Between 4 and 5 stars, but I am usually a bit leniant toward less popular and largely unknown artists.

After the wild trip that was 'Cottonwoodhill' Brainticket basically dissolved, but keyboard player Joel Vandroogenbroeck gathered an entirely different line-up around him, settling for a more song-oriented approach for the second album. I find it quite an improvement actually.

The album is very short but it doesn't waste a minute, much unlike the out-there extravaganza of the first album. One thing remained the same and that's Joel's fascination for 60's psychedelicca, many of the songs recall either the Beatles, the Stones, Pink Floyd or 60's acid folk acts. It always comes with a prominent role for the vocals, flutes, organ and percussive drumming. The songs are very diverse and generally excellent, only 'Like A Place in the Sun' features - just like it's title - a couple of cheesy vocals, the instrumental part is fun though.

The band is placed under Kraut but this album is far more accessible then the average Kraut album. There's a certain weirdness to it, but hailing from 1972, this is a fairly tame and accessible acid rock with catchy songs and melodic instrumentation. 3.5 stars.

Brainticket followed up their insanely trippy debut album, Cottonwoodhill, with this one, which remains firmly in psych-prog territory but is somewhat more approachable. Whilst it isn't quite as extreme as the previous album - there's less orgasmic screaming and no half-hour hypnotic rhythmic freakout - the consequence of this is that the album seems a bit more forgettable, the band conceding a little too much of their identity in their sidestep towards the mainstream. Some of the flute work on Coc'O Mary, the final track, is reminiscent of early Jethro Tull, for example, and for most of the album the band seems to put forward a tamer, safer, and ultimately less interesting vision of psychedelia than on their frenzied first album. It's good psych, but it's not freaky enough to be really good hard psych and not gentle or beautiful enough to be a great example of the softer side of psychedelia; as a consequence, it's an uncomfortable compromise which does what it does perfectly competently but excels at nothing.

The Krautrock album I've heard that makes the most arduous attempt to play it safe and check off whatever boxes it needs to. On the surface, that sounds like an okay attempt of getting into the genre, but once you've heard other (and better) albums and bands from around the same period, PSYCHONAUT is destined to get lost in the shuffle.

The jamming isn't bad (particularly the last track which reminds me of the German jazz outfit, Out of Focus), but bands like CAN or Neu could make elongated, repetitive jams work. ''Radagacuca'' takes a good long time to build with the payoff not as rewarding as it should be. The jamming here is pretty mundane and menial; I'm half asleep by the time the jam is over.

Whatever else the band tries sounds like an inferior version of Amon Duul II, ''One Fine Morning'' excluded. That arena of accessible Krautrock was about perfect on an ADII album called WOLF CITY; what we have on PSYCHONAUT is more or less watered-down and humdrum (despite this album predating the ADII one). The vocals are excruciatingly horrendous with absolutely no emotional investment in the delivery.

PSYCHONAUT is comparable to Greenslade's debut; has as many of the traits of its genre but watered-down and nonexciting. Only for diehard Krautrock fans.

It's always hard to get a handle on a band that reinvents itself for every album, but in truth the second LP from the Switzerland-based Brainticket was made by an entirely different group than the one that recorded "Cottonwoodhill" in 1971. Only multi-instrumentalist Joel Vandroogenbroeck remained from the original lineup; his erstwhile bandmates were likely still under medical care after surviving the borderline insanity of that earlier session.

Hearing both albums back-to-back (and they were packaged as such in at least one reissue) can be a tremendous letdown. The band's sophomore effort is a lot more inhibited than "Cottonwoodhill", but let's face it: outside of a tightly-knit straightjacket few things could possibly compare to such an extreme experience.

But just because the music was on a tighter leash is no reason to dismiss it. On its own terms "Psychonaut" is a more or less typical scrapbook of early '70s Head etiquette, complete with tablas, sitar, and Good Vibes, the latter an actual performance credit (along with "Strange Sounds"). Considered in isolation, the album is creative, unpredictable, and sometimes even exciting, from the heavy Krautrock-cum-early Tull jam in "Coc'O Mary" to the atypically haunting "Feel the Wind Blow" to the mildly lysergic flute curlicues in the opening "Radagacuca", later sampled (without acknowledgement) by fanboy Steve Wilson in his faux-LSD trip "Voyage 34".

The full effect never quite lives up to the album's awesome title or Bosch-like artwork. And the long shadow of "Cottonwoodhill" continues to linger over every note, even now. But that's okay: after such an untethered freakout the milder highs of "Psychonaut" can be a welcome relief.