Psych / Prog

Far out, MAAHHHN!!!

Karlis – naked lies

Pretty sure only a couple hundred of this oddity were put out. Hailing from Ohio, this came out in 1994 but sounds like it came out 20 or 25 years earlier. Musically this record is all over the map. Eeerie synth stuff melds into basement garage rock. Then the next song will sound like Ween […]

Alojz Bouda – Synthesizer Sound

This is a totally common record from Slovakia that has pretty bad synthesizer pop tunes. One track is insane however. It’s the track that’s called Random and according to the sleeve, here Alojz explores the possibilities of the synthesizer playing on it’s own. I wish the synthesizer had played on it’s own for the entire […]

Hall & Reasons – Spaceship

As unearthing previously overlooked privately pressed LPs becomes increasingly en vogue, collectors often fall prey to something akin to “needle-drop” syndrome. It’s too often tempting to evaluate a new acquisition with a hasty, if not faulty ear. While this sometimes works unduly in a record’s favor (for example, see the inexplicable fawning over Boscoe by […]

J.G. Weir / Exploration One

This is a one-sided guitar drone record from Orange County, 1998. I picked it up from a dollar bin because it was limited to 250 copies and I thought “what the hey.” Listening to this excellent slice of reverb zen, which I can only liken to a redux of Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music one […]

White And Red Band – Bialo Czerwoni

“The “White and Red” group was founded in the spring of 1972. They succeeded in forming a group capable of almost any style of music, from polkas, all the way throught heavy rock. The “White and Red” Band is considered the only group playing such a wide variety of music that entertains everyone from 8 […]

Caterina Casselli – Bagnata Come un Pulcino

The entrepreneurial biography of Caterina Caselli cannot go disgiunta from her artistic biography. The same passion that moves her, the same energy, the same suffering participant, the same stubborn engagement in the search of the best in a field, that one of contemporary popular music, where if it is true that fatturato it is bello […]

The Lemon Dips – Who’s Gonna Buy

The best library LP i found for 1 euro, released on De wolfe in the end of the 60s, this one is not the instrumental library LP you can often find on KPM or De Wolfe. This one is a record by an unknown british garage-psych band who can be compared with “The Deviants”. Side […]

Philippe Nicaud – Erotico…Nicaud

With an artwork by the famous painter “Aslan”, this one is my french Holy Grail. The music is as good as the cover. Philippe Nicaud is a french comedian from the sixties who acted in wack parisian plays. The music go from bossa to jerk or funk orchestra. Nicaud doesn’t sing he speaks, the lyrics are […]

Vladimir Cosma – Enfance

“I hear you still buy records, what kind of music do you like?” “Well, lately I’ve been listening to this odd electro-medieval-kiddie record.” ” Oh . . . silly me, I still haven’t said hi to the host yet. Nice to meet you.” Listen

Phoenix Sonshine – Shinin' in the Light (Destiny)

This is a Corona Del Mar, California, based Christian folk-rock album circa 1971. The Phoenix Sonshine are a quartet with one female singer and two guitarists on backup vocals. One song in particular that moves me is “Broken Wing”. The first half of the song has a brooding feel to it but with a strong […]

Baroques: S/T

One of my personal favorite psych lp’s ever. From Milwaukee, WI, the Baroques recorded just this one record for Chess in 1967. Don’t let the Chess affiliation fool ‘ya. It carries none of the cheesy trappings of stuff like Rotary Connection, etc. The sound is raw and like nothing else I’ve ever heard on the […]

Bluebeard – Bad Dream

Here’s some Los Angeles based, hard synthesizer rock from 1979 on the small Parliament label. It isn’t all that great, in my humble opinion; like a second rate Thin Lizzy. The tripped out cover art and version of the Stones’ “Paint It Black” make it worth it.

PITCH – Our House

P.I.T.C.H. (People In The Crowd Harmonists) and S.P.I.C.E. (Spreading Peace In Crowds Everywhere) were a group of about 256 Christians from St. Albert, Alberta. From what I know, this group put out three albums, two with the same cover (Spice – Choice Selections has the same cover, pictured above) and one simply called The Magic […]

The Sapphire Thinkers – From Within

Very nice west coast sunshine psych out of LA with all the right ingredients — organ, fuzz, flute, male/female vocals, cool harmonies, etc. Recorded by Sandy Lehmann-Haupt, an original Merry Prankster and sound man on the Pranksters’ bus. Quality from start to finish. And yes, those are mushrooms on the cover. Listen

The Crazy People – Bedlam

Where to begin with this one? I think the idea here was to create a psych-sploitation novelty album for the “current campus scene (Freaks)” to ponder over after they smoked some weak grass. Instead, the result is unintended brilliance. What we have here is uninterrupted musique concrete-psych-madness — snippets of psych, folk, poetry, garage, soul, […]

Louise Forestier – La Douce Emma

Louise Forestier strikes me as the edgy French Canadian counterpart to the more wholesome Nancy Priddy. Both recorded really cool psych tinged “pop” albums in the late 60s and had acting careers (Forestier chose the stage while Priddy pursued TV.) But unlike Priddy, I suspect that Forestier listened to a lot more Nico which is […]

Pesnyary – Belarussian Pop Music

According to my math professor (who acted as translator), Pesnyary were a popular Belarussian pop/folk group. Upon further researching, this album, released in 1978, was an attempt to blend Belarussian folk music with the 10-years-too-late emerging pop/psych/garage scene in the USSR. While many will find it difficult to get over the singing, I think there […]

Kaveret – Poogy Tales

I found this record in the thrift store when I was a stoned punker…didn’t think much of it and stashed it away. Now, I see that I’ve been sitting on a little soft psych, folk rock Israeli gem. Recorded sometime in the early 70s on Hed-Arzi ( same label as the legendary churchills LP), this […]

AJ – last song first side

AJ were a 3 piece from way out in the desert of Nevada. This was recorded Haloween night 1973 while they were tripping on acid or so the story goes. The album is comprised of two short tracks and two long medley’s. The lp shifts a lot from frantic tempo’s to jangly melodic stuff. The […]

Mocedades – Recuerdo De

This is a triple LP greatest hits collection from this mostly crummy spanish pop folk group. If my Mom was born in Basque Country and not Pennsylvania she’d flip over this shit instead of Carly Simon or whatever the fuck she was listening to in 1972. Although I guess people in PA were feeling this […]

Liberty Union – Get Love In

I think the best way to describe this is “family orientated xian psych from Edmonton, Alberta.” The album is interesting because the 12-member group obviously has some talent but seriously lacks in direction. Almost every song has potential: great drumming, organs, multiple male and female vocals, slow jams and fast jams. However, every song either […]

Bobb Trimble / Iron Curtain Innocence

If you were in punked out Wormtown (aka Worcester, MA) in the early 80s you might have known Bobb Trimble as the out of touch Monkees / Cheap Trick / Elvis Costello / and BEATLES fan who also enjoyed the Three Stooges and The Wizard of Oz, who made strange, haunted music that had almost […]

Windflower – s/t

After nearly a year of trying to track down this album, I finally did. Although Windflower hail from Alaska, this album was recorded in Munich, West Germany. I can’t find a date anywhere on this one but by the sounds of it, my guess is this came out in the early seventies. The playing and […]

Marr’Del – The Mystery of Love

Beautifully sparse and poetic album by this mysterious Ohio native, Marr’Del. The songs blend between spoken word poetry and singing with only the company of her guitar, harp, and sometimes the rain. Amazingly Marr’Del had no formal musical training, which really enhances the personal element of the album. There is so much more I want […]