From sublime space-scapes to the futuristic plastic sleaze-freakery of Weird War. This is a concoction that didn't grab me on the first couple of listens, but then its brilliance shone through like a revelation. Much like the grotesque cover - which initially looks dreadful, but then becomes perversely wonderful.
Harvey Mandel is a fantastic guitarist who never settled in a band, although his talents would not have been out of place in virtually any rock band of any kind of the late 60s or 70s. This was his debut album from 1968, and is an intrumental psych blues rock bonanza. The opening track, a version of the old gospel blues track 'Wade In The Water' shows off a variety of styles: he comes in with a filthy fuzz tone over a strings and rhythm groove, before switching to a clean tone to demonstrate his trademark liquid style of play, using volume pedals, panning and delay to awesome effect. This is a real guitar-heads album, with some glorious guitar tones, and some ridiculous sustain that out-Santanas Carlos Santana. It's also beautifully recorded, with a crystal clear mix, and is a joy to listen to. There are great string arrangements aplenty, and the layering of Harvey Mandel's guitar lines is genius: the wah stomp of 'Bradley's Barn' has some scintillating backwards guitar over the top as well as some unusual low end dive bomb noises. The gloriously expressive 'You Can't Tell Me' is even better, as sweet phrases flow into and over one another over a great groove. The sound palette is expanded on a few tracks: the title track has a female choir, and sounds like a prog synthesis of Nelson Riddle and Santana. Then 'Before Six' comes on like fuzzed out acid jazz, with some tremendous horn section blasts and Jimmy Smith type organ duelling with the guitar, and the best bass and drum rocking out of the album. Looking at the sleeve notes, this appears to have been recorded all over the place, and the producer credit says "Believed to be produced by Abe Kesh'. It's amazing that there is such a unity of (fantastic) sound, and that the album has such a strong identity.
Also known as Music From The Unrealized Film Script "Dusk At Cubist Castle", from 1996, this is a lovely, unashamedly retro slice of kitchen-sink psychedelia, of a similar variety to Dukes Of Stratosphear - particularly their '25 O'Clock' mini LP. Like the Dukes, OTC display a massive Beatles influence, with some terrific harmonies, and some gloriously tuneful songs. There are also loads of counter melodies on fuzz bass, little backward tape loops, weird intrumentation, phased vocals, and that's just on 'Define A Transparent Dream'. Things reach a peak with a wonderful trio of songs in the middle: 'Memories Of Jacqueline 1906' is a fab song that could have come from Ween's Mollusk, which breaks down in to the deeply psychedelic jam of 'Tropical Bells', with chugging raga fuzz and hookah bubbles. This segues into a classic Nuggets type eastern tinged groover called 'Can You Come Down With Us'. A suite of 9 tracks, all called 'Green Typewriters' follows, comprised of ever weirder sketches, where they indulge their more experimental side, with some chaotic and trippy moments - treated vocals, drones and sci-fi noises with a pulsing and spooky 9'40" track that sounds like the tour of the bowels of an alien spaceship, which is full of weird things hiding.
Sonic Boom's first solo album after leaving Spacemen 3 continues in pretty much the same vein, and has some really great stuff on it. The kind of wasted-on-drugs/gospel vein runs through virtually all of Sonic and Jason's work, borrowing liberally from blues music (Lonely Avenue); although in this case the presentation is pretty lo-fi, with drum machines and trashy organ accompanying the fuzz and reverb guitar. The formula is often incredibly simple, as on 'You're the one' - a simple riff is repeated, and the layers of fuzz guitar/organ are gradually turned up until the tune is rocking nicely. The only track that deviates slightly is my favourite track on the album, a masterpiece, and a worthy successor to 'How Does It Feel' from 'Playing With Fire'. It has a flotation tank feel, with a heartbeat-like pulse, some guitar loops, and distantly spaced keyboards. Occasional descending bass notes, chimes, and some brilliant use of reverse echo embellish this moody yet blissful track. It really does evoke the feeling of someone drifting off this mortal coil in an incredibly smashed state.
I'm posting this while the experience of seeing Dungen live 3 nights ago is still fresh, even though I'm sure I will remember it for a long time. They were absolutely fantastic - tight when appropriate, and jamming marvellously. They absolutely nailed the sound of this album, with it's hazy sheen of reverb and sun-drenched psychedelic atmosphere. The songs on this album are terrific, adding harmonies and a unique folky element which is perhaps a result of the groups Swedish origins.
I love Ween, and this 1993 Ep was a bit legendary amongst me and my chums. This has a few extra tracks thrown on, various b-sides etc, and I thank the proprietor of whatever blog I got it from a few years back. I have this on 12" and the three b-sides from this are brilliant. This single preceded Chocolate And Cheese, and a period where they recorded a lot of songs in certain musical styles. Not necessarily always a pastiche - there seems to be a genuine love of the original forms. Thus you have 'Mango Woman', a ludicrous(ly brilliant) reggae track - a style they would revisit (King Billy, The Fruit man). My favourite is 'Puerto Rican Power' - a kind of teen power rock anthem, with bad drum fills and inept guitar leads. This so beautifully evokes a bunch of spotty hispanic teenagers rehearsing in their parents basement it's unreal. It's also a great song. Then there is 'Ode To Rene', where they effortlessly offend Francophones with a load of nonsense lyrics in a breezy easy listening style that used to dominate French airwaves. Excellent stuff. All the tracks demonstrate Gene Ween's brilliant vocals in many styles, which just seem to improve with age - there are some amazing performances on their most recent album La Cucaracha.
Another all-time favourite of mine from 1997. Mainly the work of Margaret Fiedler and Guy Fixsen, with Rob Ellis on drums. Fiedler and Fixsen were a seriously creative pair, and forged a unique and beautiful sound on this album especially, although all the Laika albums are pretty good.
Debut album from 1973 by this bass/drums/sax trio. All instrumental, this is a terrific display of musicianship by all three members - playing super-tight, punchy, proggy jazz rock for the most part. The drums and sax are both excellent, but the virtuoso bass of only surviving member Colin Hodgkinson is the real highlight, driving the sinewy melodies with some inspired percussive sounding picking and slapping, demonstrated by the dazzling ensemble playing on 'Catcote' - similar to the super-prog section of '21st Century Schizoid Man'. There are deviations - the gorgeous bass solo 'Lieutenant Loose' is splendid, the lyrical duo of bass and sax on 'Turning Point' is truly marvellous, and the flute and bass track 'Human Bed' grounds the band in the early 70s, sounding more like contemporaries Traffic. Sharp-eared listeners will spot a sample used by the Beastie Boys (on Paul's Boutique, I think) from 'Slivadiv', way back when this was a real obscurity. I actually paid £20 fro this on vinyl back in the early 90s - I was going to photograph the original artwork for this post, but I think it's been in my 'buried' vinyl stack since I got the timely cd re-issue back in 2000. Also the original artwork is not that great.
2003 album from this magnificent band. I was going to post the masterpiece that is their second album, but someone requested this one, and it's a beauty. I feel that a band as consistent and durable as this often fade almost into background noise in the world of music - only a trickle of new fans are won, although there is a significant and loyal fan base. I am guilty in this respect - I only realised they had a new album out whilst I was idly browsing discogs. I promptly bought it, and you should too: this band are a glorious institution.
Another space rock one man band, this was released on the Foundry label in 1999. Similar in many ways to Tank, this consists of spacy instrumental jams and grooves, with a heavier sound, something akin to Tank meets Appliance. Bass and drums groove away, with some nice fuzz guitar lines rocking out, and a thick smear of psychedelia spread over the top. Moogy sputterings, warm organ drones, and lots of tape manipulation comprise most of the cosmic layer, heard to good effect on the 14 minute epic 'Projectile Crockery'. Tapes of various horns are sped up and slowed down manually, and generally messed around with; while the warmly distorted bass and guitars groove away, before it breaks down into a chaotic synthy sci fi soundscape. 'Speak To Me' adds a bit of radio noise to the mix, and there are some more ambient or Krautrock experimental passages, but the albums never strays too far from the template of cheerful freakout, and is great fun.
This is undoubtedly Roy Harper's masterpice. From 1971, it's ostensibly a one-man-and -his-guitar singer/songwriter album, and begins that way. Harper's beautiful, querulous voice, always betraying his roots in the north west of England, accompanied by his own acoustic (well, two tracks of acoustic). The four tracks on this album, though, are epic in every sense - in length, scope, and arrangement. Roy Harper often double-tracked his vocals, a technique that seemed to suit his voice particularly well, usually with a perfectly rich envelope of reverb, and on the first track 'Hors d'Ouvres' he is backed up halfway through by an otherworldly chorus of his own multi-tracked vocals, and electric organ. This was recorded at Abbey Road, and has that beautiful ringing clarity so redolent of that time and place, like on The Pretty Things' Parachute, or Pink Floyd's Atom Heart Mother. 'The Same Old Rock' follows, Jimmy Page adding some glorious acoustic lead work. This is an amazing track, switching between yearning and sombre moods as the different sections move along, until Harper is backed again by his own space-choir, brilliantly arranged to spine-tingling and psychedelic effect. 'One Man Rock And Roll Band' has a touch of eastern-raga-blues, with some light phaser(?) type effects on the vocals, and strangely flowing vocal phrasing. The Final track 'Me And My Woman' is an amazing track, beginning with a more traditionally English Folky tune, and some of the most haunting and gorgeous backing vocal arrangements, and some fabulous orchestra, arranged by David Bedford. This ranges from doomy strings, to plaintive clarinet, to Atom Heart Mother-style brass, all the time melding perfectly to Harper's long and winding song structure. It is a truly brilliant way to end this masterpiece of an album.
From 2003, this album is a wild blast of completely acid-drenched mayhem. It's a full-on, saturated melting pot of metal riffs, deranged warbling vocal samples, bombastic organ, stumbling drums, outrageous dub echo and distorted noise. Not to mention the OTT moog-style burblings, atonal guitar leads, screams, bleeps and unidentified scary noises. All this is mashed together with little regard for niceties such as song structure or pleasing melodies, but it's such good fun to listen to that these absences are irrelevant. The songs tend to fade into each other, making this one long, crazed assault on your senses.
Released in 2000, I consider this to be The Black Heart Procession's masterpiece. I suppose this would have fallen under the alt. country banner at the time, but there is something majestic and timeless about this album, and it has probably shed that label in the intervening years. This is a collection of spare, stark and very beautiful songs, with a consistent unity of character. 'Doom Country' I think I have referred to this as, although there is something uplifting in these baleful, resonant songs. All delivered in a downbeat, plaintive voice; and backed by a glorious palette of acoustic instruments, organ, piano, trumpet - all slowly stomping to the funeral march pace.
I'm thinking I should pepper this blog with a few more retro favourites. I love the music of the 70s, and not just the stuff that came out of Germany! Groundhogs were a band like many of their contemporaries that started out as primarily a blues based band, like Fleetwood Mac or Ten Years After, and fairly straight blues rock was the sound of their first two albums. Things changed with their third album 'Thank Christ For The Bomb', and by this, their fourth album, from 1971, they had gone down a far harder, darker and more progressive route. Like the aforementioned bands, Groundhogs had a terrific guitarist - Tony McPhee in this case. Words like blistering and coruscating spring to mind when describing his playing on this disc: he totally destroys. Ostensibly this is a power trio, which is always a great setting for a brilliant guitarist - no matter how much the bass and drums pummel away, there is always space for as much noise as he wants to make. There is plenty of distortion and wah, and utterly compelling dynamics - you can sense an oncoming outpouring of guitar fury, and you can feel the serious intent take hold of you when he steps on the volume pedal and lets rip. It's not just the lead work, though; the move away from the blues resulted in loads of interesting riffs, and open, flowing song structures. McPhee's voice is not the greatest, but is perfectly suited to the music, and just sounds so 70s. They hark back to a more pure blues on the album closer 'Ground Hog', where Tony McPhee shows the range of his skills with some fiery slide on amplified acoustic guitar. 
This amazing album came out in 2000, thus qualifies for my best of the decade run down. I still listen to this and enjoy it as much as I ever did, 9 years down the line.
Another of my favourite albums from the 2000s, this is quite an exceptional blend of prog, metal and post rock: nothing else comes close to its laser-like focus, or naturally brilliant and comfortable blend of styles: even though it feels like one individual and coherent style.
Fantastic psych fuzz punk from Canada, recorded in 1974/75. Completely out of step with prog and FM pop, and seemingly every other prevailing sound throughout their short career, this band sank into obscurity. A shame, because they had a tremendous sound - one that bordered on deranged: a pummelling rhythm section, psych-surf guitars, and wild use of "recently purchased 'audio generators' and theremin" to quote the liner notes. Add a great vocalist, in the wasted-Lou-Reed style, and a great formula was achieved: and there are cool tunes to match the distorted sonic overload sequences.
