The Psych Rock Lounge

 

The Gethsemane Option from 2013 is one of The Legendary Pink Dots less accessible albums to long time fans of their thirty plus years of recorded output. Before you can get comfortable while listing to cuts like The Maria Dimension or The Golden Age, the music of each song abruptly changes direction and adds to the disarming vibe of which this album is built on. Eschewing their subliminal Floyd and Crimson motifs, the band seemed to have jumped on the dark psych prog band wagon that spiked during this brief couple of years and leans toward Neu! styled Krautrock synths, disembodied noises that pop up in the sound mix and existential lyrics. This album is a dark psychedelic look at the world and is not for everyone. Even the cover is unsettling. But for some reason, it does exert a strange pull on this listener.

 

If you you're new to The Legendary Dots, I suggest starting with more accessible up beat albums released a few years before or after The Gethsemane Option. But if you like dark unsettling psych prog, then this is just what the doctor ordered. 

Big Hendrix day for me, I just picked up the box set to the right. It documents the six concerts the original Experience played at the late great Winterland Ballroom from 10/10/68 to 12/10/68. The first two discs are for the first two days, almost completely sourced from the second of the days's shows, except for one track for 10/10 and two for 11/10. Disc Three is an even mix of first and second show cuts from 12/10. Finally, disc four collects a few odds and sods cuts, such not because of them being in any way bad - certainly not -  but because of the focus on late shows and the wish to achieve a great flow on the first three discs.

Uniquely, these Winterland shows included the rarely played live "Manic Depression", two shows opened by a take on the Hansson & Karlsson jam "Tax Free", electrifying takes on Cream's classic "Sunshine of Your Love", closer for 12/10's early show being a take on "Wild Thing", and, at least twice, the band playing a mean medley of "The Defense of Fort McHenry (The Star Spangled Banner)" and "Purple Haze".

In spite of technical problems, partially stemming from how energetic the band played, the Experience is described as being very relaxed, and so able to come up with fiery musical magic throughout many solos and improvs.

There's somewhere around two and a half hours of music total in this set. First open day I get, I'm just going to listen to the whole thing in one sitting, and just experience the magic. 

 

Thanks for the heads up on this book....my friend Bill is a huge Beefheart fan.

 

After hitting on their magic formula of mixing prog pop and alt rock to produce 1999's wonderful The Soft Bulletin, The Flaming Lips created the fantastic follow up Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots in 2002.

Critically acclaimed and extremely popular, the album made The Flaming Lips into real music stars.

 

As demand for live appearances accelerated globally, the overwhelmed Lips found time to release two EPs in 2003. The first, Ego Tripping at the Gates of Hell basically picked up where The Lips  left off with three tracks that sound like outtakes that never made it onto Yoshimi. Assassination of the Sun, I'm a Flying Sunbeam and Sunship Balloons are all linked together and are cheerfully atmospheric as The Lips continue to sing of those evil machines.

 

The first remix of several Y Yoshimi tracks soon surfaces as Do You Realize gets an organic sounding dance mix that does nothing to improve this gorgeous song. Two remix/remakes of Ego Tripping At The Gates of Hell follow that again do no more than show how spectacular the original is, but they are interesting. 

 

The second 2003 EP released by The Lips, Fight Test, is a bit more interesting as it showcases The Lips performing live in radio studio studios and at a university campus. the album starts off with the familiar song Fight Test unaltered from the Yoshimi album but is quickly followed by the interesting live covers of non Lips tunes like the 60's hit Can't Get you Out of My Head (no it's not a cover of the ELO song) and a cover Beck Hanson's The Golden age. The Golden Age reveals Wayne Coyne's vocals devoid of auto tune and filtering found on studio releases as his naked voice is much closer to Neil Young's and has a deeper timbre and is more folky than his 'studio voice'. An excellent cover of Radiohead's Knives Out follows and The Lips channel the song's minor key melancholia perfectly. What's interesting about these covers is there more stripped down sound that shows off Steven Drozd's love of the Mellotron and that he is quite skilled on piano as well as synths and sequencers.

 

Another remix of Do You Realize? follows. this time the song has more of an European electronic dance club mix which again does little to improve on the original.

 

The EP closes with a faux cowboy song (The Lips hail from Oklahoma after all) titled Thank You Jack White for the Fiber Optic Jesus that You Gave Me! Far out.

 

If you think  that Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots was a 5 star masterpiece (like yours truly) than these two EPs will add the Yoshimi sound experience.

 

 

There has been a lot of criticized leveled against the Hendrix estate (for being greedy, in particular.)

 

I have never held that view as they made Hendrix's most mediocre posthumous reissues such as Crash Landing and Loose Ends. released in 1975 and 1974 respectively, as well 1986's Jonny B. Goode and Band of Gypsys II disappear from the market.

 

Like everyone else, I was confused and annoyed that The Cry of Love and  Rainbow Bridge, released in 1971, were discontinued and replaced by the semi compilation The First Rays of the New Rising Sun in 1997.

 

My guess is that The Cry of Love and Rainbow Bridge were reissued as stand alone albums due to the current surge in vinyl appreciation.

 

I guess we'll never know what precipitated the weird choices made by the Hendrix estate regarding these two albums, but at least they put the situation right last year with their reissues.

 

However, I doubt that will make fans that bought The First Rays of the New Rising Sun feel better.

 

Btw, where' the reissue of 1972's War Heroes?

 

Probably the closest that you can get to a psychedelic band from Iceland, Sigur Ros dispensed with the more pop overtures from their previous debut album when creating it's follow up, 1999's experimentally frozen ambient Agaetis Byrjun. Meditative at times and always shifting along in order to take your mind on a journey courtesy of the beautiful soundscapes capped off at times with swirling guitars. The band secured their own odd factor with disembodied vocals, in a made up language no less, that surface from to time throughout the album.

 

Definitely an album to relax to and float down stream.