PURE ELECTRIC HONEY

Billy James has had quite a career in the music biz. He was the founder of Glass Onion PR which is a multi-faceted publicity company specializing in the promotions of bands, labels, releases, tours and gigs and with this enterprising endeavor he has represented a multitude of well known artists including King Crimson, John Anderson, Greg Lake, John Wetton and tons of others. He has also collaborated with members of The Mothers of Invention, Alice Cooper and Captain Beefheart's Magic Band on various musical projects but beginning in the 1990s he became ANT-BEE, a psychedelic music revivalist who has released eight studio albums since this debut PURE ELECTRIC HONEY came out in 1990.

Originally this album was only released on vinyl with nine tracks. The album was finally released on CD but not until 2013 and featured an additional five bonus tracks. ANT-BEE is the star of the show here and covers vocals, drums, percussion, guitar, keyboards, tape, production and even illustration however on PURE ELECTRIC HONEY there are 13 various musicians and vocalists that cover a range of instruments including bagpipes, backwards violin, tons of guitars, sitar, flute, keyboards, bass, harmonica and still more guitar! The cats are also credited for their meowing! The guest musicians sport crazy pseudonyms such as Todd Rogers appearing as Purple Plastic Penguin which shows the seriousness of this release.

Basically what we get here is more of a neo-psychedelic pop experience rather than Krautrock. If you ask me ANT-BEE sounds a lot like the Animal Collective only stranger and more experimental with bizarre tape music, sound collages and musique concrète. The musical processions are rather mopey like Modest Mouse on a good day and the slow nary a care nonchalance of the Baroque pop flavors hearken back to the days of The Beach Boys with strong vocal harmonies only after somebody slipped a tab of lysergic delight in the punch bowl. The music is roughly divided into catchy slowcore pop folkiness and experimental sounds and recording effects.

While the 80s were probably the least psychedelic decade of all, ANT-BEE did a splendid job of ushering in the 1990s with this totally tripped out specimen of psychedelia. While most tracks are vocal oriented neo-psychedelic pop, some like "The Green Gin" are a series of sounds put together to create a bizarre otherworldly effect however even the vocal tracks sound like the Animal Collective in a time warp or something. There's an interesting multi-dimensional effect going on with this one and the easy to swallow melodies keep it from becoming complete noise and experimental freakery for its own sake not that there's anything wrong with that of course! I tend to love musical experiments that disregard all convention.

In this case the pop aspects suit the music perfectly and while it's true they do add a human element to the otherwise abstractness of the sound effects, the choice of early Pink Floyd as a model to build upon gives this some nice 60s psychedelic creds so in effect ANT-BEE achieved the goal of his retro psych experience. And just when you think the entire thing is a freaky mellow affair an energetic guitar solo and rock chord heft erupts on the track "Evolution #7" This is my kind of diverse psychedelic album that takes you out of the human experience and then puts you back again like a seesaw of realities for a classic album's run of just over 36 minutes. Yeah, i love this! This is ANT-BEE's best known album but he continued to release albums under this moniker until 2011's "Electronic Church Muzik."