The Incredible String Band - 'The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter' (Elektra)

By The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter, the psychedelic affectations of the previous record's cover are shelved in favour of some back-to-the-roots medieval roleplay, though maybe this is just a more British, stylised form of psychedelia. Joe Boyd's back, and his mark is felt even though the ISB themselves are credited with the arrangements. Still, I think Boyd knew how to record the piano so it sounds like it's being played in a great stone room; how to place microphones near the right part of the acoustic guitar to let the high-mids flow and interact wth the harpsichord so beautifully; how to incorporate a distant waterdripping sound with the string improvisation in the middle of 'The Water Song' to create an amazing atmosphere without things becoming too gimmicky. Heron's 'A Very Cellular Song' is the epic, a 13 minute mega-song which is really just like a few shorter pieces smashed together, and likewise has good and bad moments. About 2/3 of the way through is an instrumental breakdown with jaw's harp, some beat-boxing (really!) and mandolin chip-chop, which is wonderful, fruity, and just brief enough to leave one wanting more. But there's also a strange faux-gospel part (the 'goodnight, goodnight') which is a somewhat painful listen. I guess the idea of 'cellular' means that the song is just an assemblage of parts, rather than a reference to cellular phone technology (though such technology did exist in 1968, it would be called 'mobile' in UK parlance anyway), so it ends up just being a grouping/sequencing/labelling decision since these could have been broken into five or six different songs, and honestly the weak part of the album, especially when compared to some of side two's energy. Lyrically, The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter feels a bit more adult than The 5000 Spirits; there's no 'Way Back in the 1960s' or 'Hedgehog Song' here, no simple love songs. Instead we get sinewy narratives, with proper names dropped here and there, and a loose, hippie take on British myth imagery. 'Waltz of the New Moon', 'Nightfall' and 'Koeeoaddi Theme' contain the florid, colourful adjectives that fit this vibe; the freakout jam at the end of 'Three is a Green Crown' matches it with an appropriate musical exploration. Shirley Collins contributes just a little bit of piano and organ but it goes a long way. Maybe this is the best balance they ever reached, but I've only ever heard The Wee Tam and Big Huge in passing so what do I know?

D.R. Hooker - 'The Truth' (Subliminal Sounds)

How do you argue with an artist who looks like this? D.R. Hooker's record is famous more for its obscurity than its music, which is unfair. It's Christian psych at its best, not built around heavy guitar crunching like the Fraction Moon Blood record, but mostly flowing pop-rock songs that show Hooker's talent for songwriting -- if only he had gotten a larger audience at the time! And his voice isn't bad either - not enough to stand out against the million other rock voices of the greatest decade (the 70s, of course, with this coming out in '72) but with an expressiveness that's enhanced by the occasional echo/delay flutters applied at the ends of key verses and lyrics. But it's the backing band that excels here. 'Forge Your Own Chains' has a great swing to it, showing a precision of rhythm but a languid pulse, almost funky. Opener 'The Sea' is beautiful, elegant in its vocal melody and accented with sharp guitars. I don't know who these guys were, really - the rhythm section are the Sheck brothers, one of whom is credited on an Edgar Winter recording, but not much else that's recognisable to a layman. 'The Thing' is maybe my pick of the album, with sharp riffs courtesy of Hooker's own guitar, crescendoing into a cacophony with some gurgling analogue electronics and a psychedelic sheen. Or maybe it's 'I'm Leaving You', where Hooker's Jesus-lite persona gets its biggest test, as he becomes a funky soul vampire crooning about the end of a relationship over a wall of screaming flanged guitars. It's pretty fucking secular, but then the whammy of the title track, followed by 'The Bible', is where he really lays down the Word. 'The Bible' builds into an almost orgasmic peak, with Hooker's intoning of 'The bible, the bible' being so hypnotic that when it all gets quiet for a second and revs back up it's a stunning effect. When listening to this I like to stare into the off-centred spiral on the label, and take in the smell of acrid Christ-smoke, wet ferns and sand that this album seems to give off. The whole thing ends with some deliberate, obvious backwards speech, which I'm not going to risk destroying my belt-drive to hear but I assume it's imploring us to praise the Lord, or maybe praise Hooker himself (you gotta wonder about anyone who dresses up like Jesus and self-releases rock music, right?). The big complaint here is the fidelity - I assume this is a bootleg like most of these private-press reissues (supposedly there were only 99 copies of the original) so it was probably mastered from a non-mint original. Or maybe it's supposed to sound like this - this wasn't exactly Abbey Road studios to begin with, and this is lo-fi or rather 'mid-fi' before any such term existed. There's a constant sense of having dust on my stylus, distortion around the edges and a pretty murky mix when things get thick (which they often do!). So I kinda wish there was a properly remastered version out there, but maybe there is, as this has been reissued a zillion times and I just got this '99 repress secondhand. Apparently he made a second album (which I haven't heard) with the promising title of Armageddon - maybe would be a nice pairing with the decidedly anti-Christian Comus?

Gong - 'Camembert Electrique' (Virgin)

Gong is one of those bands that you can imagine was more fun to be in than to listen to, but that's not true in the case of Camembert Electrique; their most popular album, I think, or at least the one that I listen to the most. This is the fun side of progressive rock, but it's not really that proggy - the songs are relatively short, mostly built around pop ditties written by Daevid Allen, and while we get some tape manipulations and sax solos and crazy druggie vocals, it's nothing like Yes or Crimson - but rather, a tight rock band with some odd flavours. This was recorded in France, as the title indicates, and you'd think this would bring a more continental atmosphere to these Canterbury boys, but I don't know; I don't think this sounds much like French or Italian prog of the time, and Allen is Australian anyway so it's not like the British-base of Gong meant they normally sound like Tenpole Tudor. Allen's exuberance carries through, whether it's chanting 'O mother / let's do it again', the elegance of 'And You Tried So Hard',  or the irrepressible glee of 'Fohat Digs Holes in Space'. And the band is pretty versatile - a rather tight-knit unit at the point, at least compared to the big messy groups I always think of as characterising later (and Pierre Morlein's) Gong. On 'You Can't Kill Me'  and 'Dynamite' they sound quite pointed, and almost severe - the goofiness is buried, or at least balanced by a harder psych edge, kinda like, I dunno -- Jane's Addiction? But then they also can slip into moments of sweet, sweet melody, such as the chorus of 'And You Tried So Hard', a song which feels like it's changing rock sub-genres with each verse. The album is structured around four sub-30 second experimental tape pieces, appearing at the beginning and end of each side (locked grooves at the end of course, and clumsy ones at that); the 'songs' of 1 finish with two medleys, with the beautiful 'I Am Your Fantasy' (led by the gorgeous, lush vocals of Gilli Smyth) being the standout track, possibly of the whole record. The best moments of swirling space rock use echo effects over a Czukay-like bassline; 'Fohat Digs Holes in Space' runs away with this concept, building up a creeping sense of malevolence until the hook/vocals come in to save the day. And it's got the obligatory drug reference, lackadaisical approach, and noodly sax solo, to make it a truely iconic track. You know, at their worst, Gong could be seen as the proto-Phish; not that Phish are all that bad (I got sucked into a wormhole watching them cover the VU's Loaded on YouTube one night, and it was all right!). But now, they already feel like such a relic, even though this type of goofy druggy prog-pop has never died, but merely evolved.

Fraction - 'Moon Blood' (Phoenix)

There's something that divides people about this Fraction record. Maybe I swallowed the Kool-Aid pushed by The Acid Archives (which calls tracks 2-4 "among the most powerful music ever laid down", and that this is the "underground heavy psych monster to conquer them all") and other such private-press aficionados. Maybe this is really a third-rate amped-up Steppenwolf ripoff, a bunch of Christian meathead biker-rock garbage that would be intolerable were it not obscure. But whenever I hear 'Come Out of Her' I realise I must side with The Acid Archives, even if they do say that this bootleg copy sounds terrible compared to the official pressings. I'm not even a huge heavy rock guy - I don't own any Sabbath records even, and my sense of 'heavy' is probably different than most folks (I often cite Richard Thompson's 'Calvary Cross' as one of the heaviest tracks ever). Yet something about this album rips me apart. It's not so much the earnest, religious lyrics (which could all be easily about sex if you just substitute "vagina" for "God", though I guess most hymns could work that way too) as the extreme way that Jim Beach belts them out - it's like an unholy merger of Robert Plant and Jim Morrison, except I don't like either of those guys much. The recording really is good, even on this bootleg pressing, and I can imagine how a lesser production would dampen the impact of this. (Or, we can wonder how many other half-decent obscurities would have benefitted from better production). I can't deny the obscure nature of this is part of what appeals to me, but it's not obscurity for obscurity's sake. What's amazing about Fraction was that they existed at all, and I wonder what their lives were (are?) like, committed to this very uncompromising style of rock music but fervently theological in their execution. Maybe, as a nonbeliever myself, I like flirting with the idea of Christianity because it's the most 'out' trip of all, and the truest rebellion that I could enact in my life. I wonder what, if any, drugs were consumed - you'd think their beliefs would forbid it, but this sounds hand-in-hand with so many other heavy psych records which quite frequently partook. I'm with the Archives on this - this is a beast, an utterly singular record that's not an every-day listen (and may not offer many lessons in 2015) but hard to ignore when it does see the turntable.

Faust - 'So Far' (Recommended)

I've always envisioned Faust as a bit of a 'boy band', in the sense that they were put together by Uwe Nettelbeck to capitalise on the psychedelic craze. The best line from Wikipedia's entry on the first album is definitely "In 1971, Polydor entered a deal with Uwe Nettelbeck to assemble a musical ensemble that could compete with the likes of The Rolling Stones, The Kinks, and Small Faces." So they're basically the Backstreet Boys of their time! Again, it's hard to decide on the pinnacle of Faust's first four albums because they're all so fucking perfect, but So Far might be the most cohesive record of them as a 'band'. It's more diverse than the debut, opening with 'It's a Rainy Day Sunshine Girl' which is typically attributed as indebted to the Velvet Underground, but I hear more of the Godz in it, plus a hint of soul. Really! That's what my soul looks like. 'No Harm' is the one I like to play when I DJ, though I never remember the name of it ("Daddy, take a banana, Tomorrow is Sunday!", yeah that one) and when turned up LOUD, it sounds absolutely goddamned fucking incredible. This is Faust almost pissing out perfect, spazzy guitar-psych just because they can, and it's somehow a bit Dada and distinctly European and yet menacing and accessible simultaneously. They also manage to sound like Throbbing Gristle on 'Mamie is Blue', and spin some delicate folk moments with 'On the Way to Abamae'. It's occasionally goofy, like when the voices all line up on 'I've Got My Car and My TV', but more often it has a haunting, challenging darkness that spins a web of associations for me. There's actually less tape manipulations and studio fuckery here than I remember - it's really an album of songs, yet it's hard to grasp what these guys are actually about. I find something quite expressive among all these confusing branches, but then they had me at the first album. This is another reissue but one that has the beautiful prints inside, though the paper slipcase holding them is so tight that I rarely take them out. It was the last of the original four to get a CD re-release (or at least it was hella difficult to find in 1999) and thus the one I came to latest, so in many ways it still sounds the freshest, and it's a beautiful, inspiring package.

Beach Boys - 'Smiley Smile' (Capitol)

I have a confession to make - I'm a very late bloomer with the Beach Boys. Actually, I listened to a greatest hits tape a lot when I was in 2nd grade - stuff like 'Help me Rhonda', 'Surfin' Safari', 'In My Room', 'I Get Around' - so maybe that makes me an early bloomer. But it's only in the past 12 months that I really went back and got into SMiLE and post- records. I mean, I've always been cool with that stuff, always liked Pet Sounds as much as everyone else and enjoyed what I've heard of the 70's records, but I never had the total psychedelic breakthrough that was purported to be there lurking in the hours of incoherent SMiLE bootlegs (if only you could have the energy to assemble it yourself). The 2004 Brian Wilson version was decent enough, I guess, but hardly the stuff of legend. And this copy of Smiley Smile's been on my shelf for years, which I used to play just to hear 'Heroes and Villains'. But at some point last year I gave SMiLE another chance, and oh boy, did it hit me. I think everyone just needs to find their own most satsifying SMiLE bootleg. In my case, it was the "Purple Chick" edition (which I'm sure some savvy Googlers can find elsewhere on Blogspot), which rather unconventionally attempts to assemble a coherent version of SMiLE by following the 2004 edition's sequencing and titles, but 95% drawn from the 60s outtakes. There's a few occasions where they have to put the 2004 mix in for a few bars, usually just to link sections together, but I forgive this - it's an incredible package and a feat of excellent editing, and it comes across as the brilliant, almost perfect vision that it's meant to be. For a lot of last winter I would fall asleep listening to this version on headphones, hearing a million screaming voices in the background murk of 'Barnyard' and having American-spiritualist allegorical hallucinations during 'Cabinessence'. I've seen the light, as the saying goes, and maybe the fact that I had to 'work' a bit makes it more special -- I mean, what if you could go down to Best Buy and plunk down some cash for the real legit SMiLE? But now a decade-plus of rock, pop and psychedelic obsessions make sense. Maybe I should go back and listen to those High Llamas records I dismissed back in college. Anyway, to get back to the topic at hand, Smiley Smile - going back to this after hearing the unfinished majesty of the real SMiLE is difficult. Really, I find it almost unbelievable that B. Wilson would even allow this to be released. This is really the sound of giving up - the troubled perfectionist who says 'fuck it!' and just dumps out whatever he cares about the least to make a product. Am I being hard on Smiley Smile? I think not. The version of 'Heroes and Villains' is weak compared to any of the bootleg versions (though it's such an amazing tune that it still stands up even in this form) and 'Vegetables' immediately follows. But there ends the highlights. 'She's Going Bald' is a promising beginning that ends in an unsatisfying bit of studio fuckery - hardly the worst Beach Boys track ever, but just a hint at the aborted "humour" component to SMiLE and so completely tossed off here that it's hard to really enjoy it. The casual becomes the sublime in 'Little Pad', one of the stronger songs even though there's not much to it. 'Good Vibrations' is 'Good Vibrations' but since that was a previously released single it doesn't really count, though it's sure nice to be included here in blistering mono. 'Wonderful' and 'Wind Chimes' are really frustrating because they just sound lazy compared to any of the bootleg outtakes - a lot of the instrumentation behind these tracks is a stripped down synth/organ, almost as if Brian played everything himself just to get it finished. 'Whistle In' ends the record on a forgettable bit of filler, which is all this record really is. Even when I hadn't properly Heard the real SMiLE outtakes, this felt like filler + a few good songs, which is generally how the public received it (if my history is correct). For those people who don't have the guts to venture into bootleg territory, this and a few songs from later records is all you'll get. ('Cabinessence' from 20/20 is perfect, and ditto for 'Surf's Up' when it finally appeared on the album of the same name). And that's hardly enough to base a myth on, so start here and then go find those bootlegs.

Syd Barrett - 'The Madcap Laughs and Barrett' (Harvest)

It's nice to have this as a 2-record set with a photo-adorned gatefold. Barrett is such the stuff of myths these days that I find it colours my enjoyment of the music a bit. Sure, it's a great story and it's almost inarguable that Pink Floyd was more interesting with him, but it's hard not to feel like the poor guy was exploited a bit. And listening to The Madcap Laughs has its moments of genuine spookyness, but a lot of proto-twee cute moments that, whether they were Barrett's fault or not, are hard for me to get past now. Among the plethora of depressed, outsider folk that's been unearthed there's certainly been a lot of more fucked up stuff, but Barrett has the mass appeal. I guess cause there's such a strong pop sensibility, plus the connection to a very popular rock band whose posters still adorn the walls of college dorms worldwide. Now, my favorite moments tend towards songs like 'Dark Glove', 'Terrapin' and 'Golden Hair', maybe because I've drowned myself in the outfolk sound recently. But the poppy tunes are great too: 'Here I Go' is an Ayers-like bit of whimsy that I think Barrett pulls off well, but many others maybe would stumble on it. I always thought Robert Wyatt played on this record but Harvest's repackaging doesn't credit him, if that is true. Barrett is a bit more cohesive and rocking, with some great songs ('Waving my arms int he air/I never lied to you' is a quite underrated one, plus 'Wolfpack'), yet I think I'm mostly satisfied by the end of record one. The messed up rhythms that sounded so 'crazy' once are there and I pity the backing band, but it's not reason enough to be excited in a record collection full of hesitations. This set falls into the category of records I'd never consider getting rid of, yet I'll probably never listen to them again. They are trophies, existing only to chronicle some important stage in my past development for my own autobiographical purposes. And, I don't have Spence's Oar so maybe this fills that niche too. When I was 15 I used to dream of meeting a girl who would have a Syd Barrett poster in her room, though instead of James Joyce's 'Golden Hair' she always had black locks in my dreams. Said girl never materialised but I'm sure she's not hard to find (I'm no longer interested). But a girl with a Kenneth Higney poster instead, now that would be a treat!