Stevie Wonder Innervisions



Cheers Deep Funk for the JB tip

Numbersixx, compilation 1 and 2 are all you need. We are blessed that James Brown had an amazing sound man.

I bought Part 1 at the same time. Couldn't help myself.

When I went to the Jazz section in the store I saw the Verve reissue of this album. I had to pick it up if only for the name. I like my coffee black.

Whitesnake - Is This Love


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Ozzy Osbourne - No More Tears

CEETEE's mentioning Gong has rekindled my fire this week.

This post is actually somewhat painful for me. What I'm about to share music-wise is all culled from a very difficult period of my life. I find music has a way of weaving itself through time and space, and it forms irrevocable bonds with points in one's life, so much so that it invokes all the associations of that period whenever it's heard. Of course, this can be very pleasant, like thinking of an early crush whenever you hear My Bloody Valentine's Loveless. Or traveling after graduating high school to Flaming Lips' Yoshimi and Boredoms' Vision Creation Newsun. For the present music however, the memories are mostly of hurting myself and others. Thing is this music is just so absolutely amazing---so utterly compelling---that I can't just let it go. Really, by sharing this stuff with others I hope to exorcise some of those demons that I've kept inside, and hopefully see that this music is part of what helped me to survive in spite of it all. So I suppose this post is equal parts compulsive scab-picking, equal parts catharsis, and an equal part of genuine desire to share.

First up is "An Appointment With the Master" from Bachdenkel's Lemmings album. This album is, in my humble opinion, one of the greatest ever made from any period of this past century. This track in particular is just astonishing to me in its emotional power.



Bachdenkel didn't release much material, sadly. They're something of an enigma. Originally they were called The U (Don't) No Who and played in England, but at some point they met Jesus on a vision quest or something and decided to move to France and play proggy psychedelic rock.

Next is T2's weirdly titled It'll All Work Out In Boomland. These guys are sort of a supergroup of underground psychedelic bliss that more people should know about but sadly don't. Their sound evokes shades of Blue Cheer and Cream, a cosmic bluesy slow burner.



This track "J.L.T." is somewhat understated by their standards, but it's just achingly beautiful. The real centerpiece of the album however is probably "Morning," a 21 minute musical allegory for an LSD trip. Yeah. So really you should listen to these albums in their entirety when you've got a good chunk of time to just devote to being awesome.

Lastly (for now) I should post some Incredible String Band. Not because I feel they really ever achieved the level of magnificence of the above two citations, but because they really were---more so than almost anyone else---able to tap into a certain wavelength that makes "true" psychedelic music what it is. Really, I've always asserted (to the chagrin of some friends) that psychedelic music cannot be adequately defined by a set of stylistic characteristics in and of itself, but rather it must tap into the moods and inside-out logic that accompany a very specific [chemically induced] state of mind.




More later.