Tag Archives: Psych

The Bumps: Playin’ Italian Cinedelics

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Organ trio riffs on ‘60s and ‘70s Italian soundtracks

Given the obscurity of the titles, all but the most devoted Italian cineastes will have to take this trio’s word that these organ-jazz arrangements are based on movie soundtracks. Their best-known inspirations, Ennio Morricone and Piero Umiliani, are augmented by Gianni Ferrio, Piero Piccioni, Luis Bacalov and others. The selections mix breezy sounds of mid-60s la dolce vita with a good measure of early-70s exploitation cinema. Vince Abbracciante’s Hammond, Farfisa and Rhodes range from jazz cool to psych-soul heat, and the rhythm section plays with sharp, percussive force. Wordless vocals add an Esquivelian touch to several tracks, and guest players add flute, sax, flugelhorn, guitar and a duet vocal on Armando Trovajoli’s “L’amore Dice Ciao.” This is a nice spin for Italian cinephiles and lovers of hot organ jazz and cool easy listening. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

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Radio Moscow: The Great Escape of Leslie Magnafuzz

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‘70s-styled power-trio monster riffage

Parker Griggs and his band take it to the next level of power-trio psychedelic blues-rock with their third album. Griggs is possessed by the metal, blues-rock, boogie and prog-rock greats of the early ‘70s as he unleashes monster guitar riffage astride the slugfest of his rhythm section. One can only dream that Radio Moscow could be sent back in time to tread the stage of Winterland on a bill with Hendrix, Sabbath, Crimson, Ten Years After or Humble Pie. The album opens in full hypersonic stride, with the bass and drums threatening to run away from the ear-clearing wails of Parker’s fuzzed guitar, and the bombast doesn’t let up until disc’s end. There are a few production touches – stereo pans, phase effects and feedback – but the bulk of the album is straightforward, take-no-prisoners hard rock. Drop the needle on your Thorens turntable, turn up the volume on your Marantz receiver and let your Advent loudspeakers sing. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Little Eyes
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Brian Olive: Two of Everything

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A bewitching album of rock, soul, glam, psych and more

Brian Olive’s second album continues to showcase the multi-instrumentalist’s musical breadth. Singing, writing and playing piano, guitar, and woodwinds, his music is based in rock and soul, but stretches out with superb touches of psych, glam, jazz, blues, R&B, exotica and even a hint of the musical stage. As on his debut release, Olive interweaves his influences, evoking an Eastern feel with a guitar and tone generator solo on the funky “Left Side Rocking,” layering brooding woodwinds on the thick drum backing of “Traveling,” threading his flute into the deep bass soul of “Go on Easy,” and evoking Detroit-era Motown with the title track’s melody. The instrumental reprise of “Two of Everything” sounds like something from Edgar Winter’s glam period, and the tone generator on “Strange Attractor” hangs niftily between the backwards riff of the Beatles’ “Baby You’re a Rich Man” and a bagpipe. The lyrics are poetic and image-heavy, but rather than trying to decipher the sentences, listeners will groove on the ease with which the words express the melodies; more extemporaneous thought than composed character and story. Recorded in Cincinnati and Nashville, and co-produced by the Black Key’s Dan Auerbach, this is an album you don’t just listen to, you feel it. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

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Gardens: Gardens

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Driving Detroit rock spiked with punk and psych

Detroit may have taken a body blow from the recession, but it only seems to have intensified the city’s music. This Motor City quartet has the aggressiveness of a ‘70s punk band weaned on the Stooges, Amboy Dukes and MC5 and the range of a band that’s listened through the transitions from garage to psychedelia and punk to post-punk. Things fall apart, Velvet Underground-style, on “Ideas to Use,” but snap back together for the driving bass-guitar-drums riff of “Safe Effect.” Touches of organ and a low-key lead on “River Perspective” down shift momentarily, as does the experimental “Poems,” but it’s the mid-tempo, hard-strummed numbers that will move you and make you move. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Safe Effect
Gardens’ Home Page

Dengue Fever: Cannibal Courtship

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Intriguing 1960s Cambodian rock influences

This Los Angeles combo continues to make some of the most unexpected music of the decade. Formed in 2001, Dengue Fever grew out of organist Ethan Holtzman’s interest in 1960s Cambodian rock. Originally setting out to cover the obscurities he’d collected on record, the addition of Cambodian vocalist Chhom Nimol gave the band an elevated sense of authenticity and set them evolving into something more original. Nimol originally stuck to singing in her native Khmer, but here she takes the step to switch between Khmer and English as the each song demands. The music remains anchored to the mix of psych, jazz, pop, garage, exotica and Indian flavors that came together in 1960s Cambodian popular music, and the seamlessness with which it all fits together continues to amaze.

The album opens on a cool note with “Cannibal Courtship.” The guitar and electric piano initially riff quietly behind Nimol’s cooing, but a bouncy, wordless chorus ramps up the volume and tension as the vocal gains passion and the music explodes into a buzzing, electric backdrop. The group overlays deep bass lines with hard fuzz guitar, free saxophone solos, and group vocals that recall the Jefferson Airplane’s ballroom days. Nimol snakes her vocal around the guitar and bass riffs of “Uku,” with finger cymbals and a flute solo adding a period feel. The group edges into the mood of spy jazz with “Sister in the Radio” and late ’50s exotica with “Kiss of the Bufo Alvarius,” leaving the listener to wonder not just what they’re listening to, but even more beguilingly, when. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Cement Slippers
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The Witches: A Haunted Person’s Guide to the Witches

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Psych- and garage-inflected Detroit rock nods to the ‘60s and ‘70s

Troy Gregory (Killing Joke, Dirtbombs) formed the Witches in Detroit in the mid-90s, and over the course of a decade this loose aggregation, including fellow Michiganders John Nash and Jim Diamond, produced the five little-known psych-inflected rock albums sampled here. The opening guitar riff of “Everyone the Greatest” suggests Paul Revere and the Raiders before the rhythm section add a heavier bottom end and the vocal shades to a 1960s drone. Gregory’s songs have the hooks of garage and rock bands that broke through to AM radio in the ‘60s and ‘70s, tipping their hat to the Byrds and Flamin’ Groovies with “Lost With the Real Gone,” Love with “Sprit World Rising,” and T-Rex with bass-and-handclap rhythm of  “Down on Ugly Street.” In contrast to fashion-plate revivalists, the Witches showcase an amalgamation and evolution of their influences that keeps these tuneful echoes fresh. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Lost With the Real Gone
The Witches’ MySpace Page

Jonny: Jonny

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Teenage Fanclub meets Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci

Teenage Fanclub’s Norman Blake and Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci’s Euros Childs have more melodicism in the tip of their respective pinkies than most musicians create in their entire careers. Paired together for their first full-length collaboration, the results are a brilliantly crafted cocktail of their respective bands, ‘60s British invasion and garage pop, canyon country, ‘70s power pop, pub and light rock, and ‘80s post-punk psychedelia. Like XTC’s Dukes of Stratosphear, there’s an element of spot-the-influence here, but the references are more fully digested and fleeting: a vocal harmony that suggests Curt Boettcher, CS&N or America, a melody hook that recalls the Kasnetz-Katz bubblegum factory, a stomping rhythm you’d have heard from Brisnley Schwarz, or an organ riff that lodges the Monkees in your ear.

The opening “Wich is Wich” would have made a terrific theme song to an H.R. Pufnstuf spin-off, and the nearly eleven-minute “Cave Dance” could be, for those who remember that Pufnstuf lived in a cave, both a stoneage dance sensation and a low-key escape from the powers of Witchiepoo. Unsurprisingly, the pair create buoyant, winsome music, but with just enough melancholy and angst to keep the sweetness from dissolving your teeth. Even the album’s first single, “Candyfloss,” crosses its lyrical dream woman in a duet vocal whose Motors-like harmony is laden with discontent. There are a few lesser tunes, but they quickly disappear as you indulge in the yearning of “Circling the Sun” and “I Want to Be Around,” tap your toe to the country-inspired “I’ll Make Her My Best Friend,” and glory in the duo’s irresistible melodies. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

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Chubby Checker: Chequered! (New Revelation)

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The King of the Twist gets his soul heavily psyched

Given the height of Chubby Checker’s fame (his signature recording of Hank Ballard’s “The Twist” being the only single to top the chart on two separate occasions), his Q rating must have really sunk by 1971 to keep this album so deeply buried. Seven years after the last Top 40 singles of his major run (1964’s folk-rock limbo Lazy Elsie Molly and the 1965 Freddie and the Dreamers knock-off Let’s Do the Freddie), Checker waxed this one-off album of psychedelic rock and heavy soul. His voice is immediately recognizable, but the swinging Cameo-Parkway house band was replaced by the plodding rock and blue soul of a nameless European band. Deep organ, screaming guitar solos and heavy rock drumming combine to back vocals freed from the constraints of early ‘60s pop. It’s a treat to hear what else Checker could do with his voice, and it’s a mystery why he’s disavowed these performances (well, maybe it’s not such a mystery why he’s disavowed “Stoned in the Bathroom”); the album still doesn’t appear on his web site’s discography. Originally released in Europe, the album’s always been hard to find in the states. Even this 1982 reissue is tough to locate used. Hopefully Collectors’ Choice will track down the rights for this one when they complete their reissue of Checker’s Parkway material. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

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The Clientele: Minotaur

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Terrific spin on paisley, psych and sunshine pop

These leftovers from the sessions that produced 2009’s Bonfires on the Heath include several memorable mélanges. The title track brings to mind the baroque sounds of the Left Banke, the paisley patterns of the Rain Parade and the sunshine pop of Curt Boettecher. The second track, “Jerry” is even more beguiling, feinting towards progrock with its opening, but quickly giving way to vocal harmonies reminiscent of the Robbs and Three O’Clock, with drifiting piano and a melodic bass displaced by Television-like staccato guitar and an escalating rhythm whose tension is again broken by vocal pop. The EP’s lone cover, “As the World Rises and Falls” is an obscure album track from the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band’s third release. The hypnotic production and crawling psychedelia are perfect complements to Alasdair MacLean’s hushed vocal – particularly his drawn-out reading of “rises” as “rye-zizzzz.” The tone turns jauntier for “Paul Verlaine,” bouncing along like a Paul Weller reverie, and the folk-rock “Strange Town” suggests Cat Stevens and Donovan (albeit with someone tuning a vintage oscillator for a mid-song solo). There’s a moody piano solo and a lengthy spoken word piece before the EP closes on a lovely pop-soul note. All in all, a brief bite, but a tasty one. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Jerry
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Jefferson Airplane: Setlist – The Very Best Of

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Live Airplane flights from 1966 to 1972

The Legacy division of Sony continues to explore new ways to keep the CD relevant. Their Playlist series was the first out of the gate with eco-friendly packaging that used 100% recycled cardboard, no plastic, and on-disc PDFs in place of paper booklets. Their new Setlist series follows the same path of a single disc that provides an aficionado’s snapshot of an artist’s catalog. In this case the anthologies turn from the studio to the stage, pulling together tracks from an artist’s live repertoire, generally all previously released, but in a few cases adding previously unreleased items. As with the Playlist collections, the Setlist discs aren’t greatest hits packages; instead, they forgo some obvious catalog highlights to give listeners a chance to hear great, lesser-known songs from the artist’s stage act.

Jefferson Airplane was a band that truly came alive in live performance. Their studio albums remain lauded, but it was the experience of their shows, stretching the studio tracks into acid-drenched ballroom jams, that minted their San Francisco Sound legend. Their live sound has been documented on numerous official releases, four of which are sampled here (Bless its Pointed Little Head, Thirty Seconds Over Winterland, and Sweeping Up the Spotlight), highlighting performances from the group’s home courts (the Fillmore Auditorium, Fillmore West and Winterland) and favorite tour cities Chicago and New York. This set also pulls in a few tracks that were included on the compilation Jefferson Airplane Loves You, as well as previously unreleased (at least officially) Fillmore performances of “White Rabbit” (11/26/66) and “It’s No Secret” (2/6/67, late show).

The dozen tracks gathered here span nearly the full length of the Airplane’s history, sans the group’s original female lead singer, Signe Anderson. This set’s timeline starts with a concise, but thrilling, November 1966 performance of “White Rabbit” recorded only a month after Grace Slick replace Anderson, and concludes in the Fall of 1972 with tracks from the band’s last tour. By ’72 Marty Balin had left the lineup, Papa John Creach had been added (along with John Barbata and David Freiberg), and Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady were getting deeper and deeper into their side project, Hot Tuna. The band still jammed to the end, as evidenced by the superb eleven minute rendition of Kaukonen’s “Feel So Good,” but the unity heard on the earlier tracks seemed to be fraying. The version of “Crown of Creation” offered here, for example, is often more cacophonous than musical.

This isn’t a bad place to get an overview of the Airplane’s journey as a live band. In contrast to the earlier live albums, you get a broader timeline of material and a view of the band’s evolution as writers and performers over the bulk of their existence. Fans who have already absorbed the available material will likely want to opt for the four live releases being issued in October 2010 by Collectors’ Choice. These sets document San Francisco dates (10/15/66, 10/16/66, 11/25,27/66, and 2/1/68) that include Anderson’s last show, Slick’s first two, and the emotional return of the Airplane to the Matrix. If you weren’t there, and only know the Airplane from their studio hits (or, worse, the Starship’s), you really owe it to yourself to hear what all the fuss was about. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]