While the UK Parliament is currently, right at this moment, drafting an online safety bill with the premise that Facebook is “unquestionably making hate worse,” the only slightly better platform Twitter is responsible for merging the talents of an Austin-based band with their shoegaze idol. When the double couple quartet Blushing tweeted out to Miki Berenyi of Lush/Piroshka in 2018, after covering “Out of Control” for a Lush covers compilation, they didn’t expect Berenyi to slide into their DMs and agree to work with them. Now, three years later, the collaboration made in dream pop heaven has arrived.
Berenyi’s celestial croons mingle effortlessly with Michelle Soto and Christina Carmona’s wispy lilts that beckon us to “stick around and find out” on “Blame,” the lead single off Blushing’s forthcoming follow-up to their 2019 self-titled debut. With a rush of woozy reverberating guitar and cascading drum crashes that would make Emma Anderson and the late Chris Acland respectively proud, Noe Carmona and Jacob Soto fill out the Lush-like single with aplomb.
Titled “Possessions“, the pandemic-produced album is due out in February 2022 via Brooklyn-based label Kanine Records and features production from Ringo Deathstarr frontman and fellow Austinite Elliott Frazier. But if you thought we were done dropping names of shoegaze idols involved in the making of the record, then you thought wrong, because none other than MarkGardener of the seminal shoegaze outfit Ride put the finishing touches on the record with his mastering magic.
From the upcoming album “Possessions” out February 18th 2022 on Kanine Records
releases February 18, 2022
Blushing under exclusive licensing to Kanine Records
A couple weeks after the release of their debut self-titled album, Led Zeppelin appeared as the opening act for Iron Butterfly, then one of the world’s biggest bands, at Bill Graham’s Fillmore East. But it was Zeppelin who blew away the audience. “In other words, through the Zeppelin album is very, very good, the group in person is even better and the excitement they generate hasn’t been felt in the Fillmore since the last appearance of Big Brother & the Holding Company,” read one review of the performance. “A subtle hint of the group’s quickly growing status can be found in the fact that while their album had only been out a week and a half, fully half the audience was familiar with it. Need we say more?”
TRAIN KEPT AROLLIN’ I CAN’T QUIT YOU thank you very much, indeed. good evening, uh, from, Led Zeppelin. That was, uh, that was a thing, uh, from Otis Rush called “I Can’t Quit You Babe”. we’re gonna carry on with, uh, a thing off the new Led Zeppelin album. This is called “Dazed And Confused” thank you very much. thank you. thank you very much. well, right now we’d like to feature, uh, John Bonham on drums. this is John Bonham, “Pat’s Delight” how ’bout that? John Bonham. JohnBonham. ladies and gentlemen, we, we’d like to say goodnight and thanks very much for having us. I’d like to introduce LedZeppelin To You. on bass and Hammond organ, when it’s available, John Paul Jones. on drums, John Bonham. lead guitar, Jimmy Page. and myself, Robert Plant
HOW MANY MORE TIMES thank you very much goodnight, goodnight from Led Zeppelin, Thank you YOU SHOOK ME Thank you very much for everything you do, We’ll see you again one day. good night from Led Zeppelin.
“Porter’s Popular Preachers (replacement act for The Move) opened the night, then Led Zeppelin took the stage prior to the headliners Iron Butterfly. The Move was originally billed as the opening act, but dropped out. Iron Butterfly cancelled their second show and Edwin Hawkins Singers replaced them. Psychedelic imagenary was provided by the Joshua Light Show.”
“This was possibly great and very intense show. Having almost complete recordings for their second date at Fillmore we can expect that the band performed their usual set and crashed the audience what caused of an applause for the Zeppelin instead of Iron Butterfly, whose were billed as headliners. Robert’s voice in all of its high pitched, amazing 1969 glory and the band playing as well as ever. “Dazed And Confused” was played instead of “How many More Times” this time and the show is very tight and powerful throughout. Jimmy is on fire!”
Setlist: 01 – Train Kept A Rollin’ [0:00] 02 – I Can’t Quit You [3:27] 03 – Dazed And Confused [9:28] 04 – Pat’s Delight [19:22] 05 – How Many More Times (incl The Hunter) [27:30] 06 – You Shook Me [39:00]
There was about 5-6 encores of covers that are not included here. The audience did not want to let them go and the applause and foot stomping was deafening. Plant apologized that they had no more songs to play after the last encore.
Eric Clapton has announced a new live album, recorded during lockdown, “The Lady in the Balcony: Lockdown Sessions“. The collection of 17 songs include mostly acoustic renditions of such classics as “Layla” and “Bell Bottom Blues,” performed with his long time bandmates Nathan East (bass and vocals), Steve Gadd (drums) and Chris Stainton (keyboards).
The recording was overseen by Clapton’s longtime Grammy-winning producer Russ Titelman and was recorded live at Cowdray House in West Sussex, England. The performance features Clapton standards and an assortment of other numbers encompassing blues, country and rarified originals.
In February 2021 Eric Clapton’s live shows at The Royal Albert Hall were cancelled due to the global pandemic. Determined to play, he brought his band together in the English countryside. In the absence of a live audience, he decided to record the performances.
The title arrives on November 12th, 2021, via Mercury Studios on multiple formats. Watch the official trailer and their performance of several favourites, including “Black Magic Woman” and “After Midnight,” below.
The Lady in the Balcony: Lockdown Sessions also offers versions of songs that had a profound effect on his career and those of his contemporaries including the Peter Green-era Fleetwood Mac tracks “Black Magic Woman” and “Man of the World.”
He reconvened with his band to the English countryside and staged a concert in the presence of only the participants themselves while letting the cameras roll. The mostly acoustic set was envisioned to be like an Eric Clapton Unplugged II, but not quite, as three songs are played with electric guitars.
Performing acoustic renditions of Clapton standards and an assortment of other numbers encompassing blues, country and rarified originals. Recorded live at Cowdray House in West Sussex, England, the performance finds Clapton and company revisiting such timeless classics as “After Midnight,” “Layla,” “Bell Bottom Blues,” “Tears in Heaven,” “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down And Out” and “Key to the Highway.” In addition to revisiting some of Eric’s best-loved selections from his own extensive repertoire, Clapton and crew also offer their own versions of songs that had a profound effect on his career and those of his contemporaries including the Peter Green-era Fleetwood Mac tracks “Black Magic Woman” and “Man of the World.”
The project was initiated as the result of the forced cancellation of Eric’s concerts scheduled for May 2021 Looking for a viable alternative and hoping to keep his options open, he reconvened with his band to the English countryside and staged a concert in the presence of only the participants themselves while letting the cameras roll. (Eric’s wife, Melia, the sole outside observer inspired the Sessions title.) The mostly acoustic set was envisioned to be like an “Eric Clapton Unplugged II,” but not quite, as three songs are played with electric guitars. The result became far more than simply a sequence of greatest hits. Rather, it’s one of the most intimate and authentic performances of his entire career, an offering flush with real insight into the make-up of his indelible catalogue. Eric Clapton “The Lady in the Balcony: Lockdown Sessions”
Eric Clapton returns with a remarkable new release, “The Lady In The Balcony: Lockdown Sessions” on November 12th. Available via Mercury Studios
Bruce Springsteen appeared on last night’s episode of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, where he performed an acoustic rendition of ‘The River’. Springsteen also sat down for an interview with Colbert, talking about his friendship with Barack Obama as well as the “No Nukes” concert film.
Set for release on November 23rd, The Legendary 1979 “No Nukes Concerts” captures Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band’s benefit shows at Madison Square Garden filmed for the 1980 documentary “No Nukes“. The film has been newly edited from the original footage and features appearances by Jackson Browne, Tom Petty, and Rosemary Butler.
Rock and Roll Hall of Famer and author of the new book, “Renegades: Born in the USA,” Bruce Springsteen, wraps his full-episode Late Show takeover with this solo performance of his song, “The River.”
Watch Bruce Springsteen Perform ‘The River’ on ‘Colbert’ –
RENEGADES: Born in the USA is a collection of candid, intimate, and entertaining conversations between Barack Obama, the 44th president of the United States, and legendary musician Bruce Springsteen. The book, published in partnership with Higher Ground, is scheduled for global publication on 26th October 2021.
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert is the premier late night talk show on CBS, airing at 11:35pm EST, streaming online via Paramount+, and delivered to the International Space Station on a USB drive taped to a weather balloon. Every night, viewers can expect: Comedy, humour, funny moments, witty interviews, celebrities, famous people, movie stars, bits, humorous celebrities doing bits, funny celebs, big group photos of every star from Hollywood, even the reclusive ones, plus also jokes.
Los Angeles band Le Pain, which includes onetime Beverly and Public Practice member Scott Rosenthal, are back with their second single, a frothy, Frenchy confection titled “Obvious to You.”
“Obvious to You“, which is the new single from Los Angeles based Le Pain, is a jangling indie pop affair that not only has its paws in the 1980s influences pot but also greedily feeds off the sound of 1960s girl bands too. I am sure you would agree that it’s a fine mix and the song’s charms belie the feeling of angst expressed in the song. Sisters Madeline and Olivia Black linked with producer/multi-instrumentalist Scott Rosenthal and bassist Alan Everhart to craft a sunny melange of art pop, dream pop, and ‘60s psych. They debuted earlier this year with their first single, “Troisième Groupe” and today they’re back with this effort,
As the band describes, “‘Obvious to You’ is a jangly 80’s homage about struggling to keep it together through a frustrating episode, while a smug onlooker offers unhelpful criticism. It’s a celebration of Johnny Marr guitar riffs and danceable UK dream pop bands like Strawberry Switchblade. Synths start out bright and optimistic, but morph into a sinister flock of psychedelic dive-bombing seagulls.”
The band consist of sisters Madeline and Olivia Black, Scott Rosenthal and Alan Everhart. Members have previously been in Public Practice and Yucky Duster. A new single titled “Grump” , dating from 2017, has also appeared on the latter’s Bandcamp page in the past week.
‘Obvious to You’ is out now on Lucky Buckeye Records. Independent record label based in the LA (CA), Oxford (MS), and Oslo (NO). Releasing charmed music since 2021
Midlake will be back with “For The Sake of Bethel Woods”, their first new album in nearly a decade, on March 22nd via ATO/Bella Union. Their fifth album, it marks the first time the band have worked with an outside producer, John Congleton, who also engineered and mixed the album.
The album is named for the site of the 1969 Woodstock festival and the town is where flautist/keyboard player Jesse Chandler grew up. The album cover is an illustration based on his father at the original Woodstock. “At age 16 my father and his friend hitchhiked from Ridgewood, NJ to the Woodstock festival in 1969,” says Chandler. “This image of him with his hand to his face appears in the 1970 Woodstock documentary, as the camera pans across the crowd during John Sebastian’s set. My father actually ended up moving to Woodstock, NY – where I grew up – in 1981. For me, the picture of that kid, my dad, forever frozen in time, encapsulates what it means to be in the throes of impressionable and fleeting youth, and all that the magic of music, peace, love, and communion bring to it, whether one knows it at the time or not. (I think he knew it).”
The first single from the album is “Meanwhile…,” which is a typically lush Midlake creation and a wink towards the band’s absence. “’Meanwhile…’ is a song referencing the time in between what transpired leading up to our hiatus in ‘14, and what inspired us to reconvene in ’20,” says singer/guitarist Eric Pulido. “The former being an unhealthy and unsustainable place that called for pause and the latter a serendipitous visit from Jesse’s late father (Dave Chandler, depicted on the album cover) in a dream encouraging him to reunite with the band. Everyone had their respective experience during the uncertain time apart culminating in a confident and celebratory return to form.”
It’s been almost a decade since we’ve heard from them, but now Midlake are set to return with their unique take on folk rock. ‘For the Sake of Bethel Woods’ is their first since 2013’s ‘Antiphon’, and drops next year on Bella Union. The Texan outfit are known for mid-2000s classics including ‘The Trials of Van Occupanther’ and their sound which mixes Laurel Canyon folk with indie rock, psychedelia, and chamber pop.
Loss and hope, isolation and communion, the cessation and renewal of purpose. Timeless and salient, these themes echo throughout the fifth album from Midlake, their first since “Antiphon” in 2013. Produced to layered, loving perfection by John Congleton, “For the Sake of Bethel Woods” is an album of immersive warmth and mystery from a band of ardent seekers, one of our generation’s finest: a band once feared lost themselves by fans, perhaps, but here revivified with freshness and constancy of intent.
Nation Of Language are a Brooklyn-based indie-pop band who are bringing a modern twist to synth-punk and new-wave music.
The indie pop act Nation of Language will play a string of shows across the UK in January 2022. The tour will promote their new album “A Way Forward”, which is set to be released on 5th November. It continues the successful formula of new-wave synths, haunting vocals and propulsive drum beats which defined their critically lauded debut “Introduction, Presence“.
While much of the sounds on the band’s previous record garnered comparisons to the synth-punk sound of the 80’s, on this new offering the band delved heavily into the Krautrock pioneers and electronic experimentalists of the 70’s for inspiration in the studio, stretching their boundaries in new and different ways.
The musical trio’s first single from the album ‘Across That Fine Line’ was released this June. Singer/songwriter Ian Devaney said of the track, ‘”Across That Fine Line” is a reflection on that moment when a non-romantic relationship flips into something different. When the air in the room suddenly feels like it changes in an undefinable way.
‘It’s a kind of celebration of that certain joyous panic, and the uncertainty that surfaces right after it.’
We drew a lot from the steady locomotive rhythms of bands like Kraftwerk and Neu!, while also looking to less-propulsive electronic artists like Laurie Spiegel and Cluster. The goal was to have a record that felt like a journey, like being on a train that gets lost in a colourful fog, and then suddenly bursts through into different landscapes. Thematically, some of those landscapes are familiar in their melancholy, but we also wanted to introduce celebration and joy in a way that hadn’t really been present in our previous album. Having these bursts of positivity felt like it gave the emotional low points more resonance, giving a stronger sense of emotional reality to the album overall.”
Nation of Language performing “SONG” live in the KEXP studio. Recorded October 13th, 2021.
Songs: Across That Fine Line Wounds of Love This Fractured Mind The Wall & I
The Cherries Are Speaking—the sixth album released by Brooklyn singer-songwriter Dan Knishkowy as Adeline Hotel—begins and ends with lyrics from his previous two records, respectively. “Holy visions” surfaced first on the mournful acoustic ballad “Ordinary Things,” a rare, stripped-down moment on his folk-rock opus Solid Love from last May. “Good timing,” in turn, is the eponymous lyric from the critically acclaimed follow up, released in March of this year—and one of its only lyrics, too, since the record is largely a suite of layered acoustic guitars.
The original context for these phrases hint at the fresh musical and lyrical ground Knishkowy covers on The Cherries AreSpeaking, an interconnected series of miniature baroque pop songs and, quietly, his most ambitious work to date. In the skeleton of its arrangements, the album expounds upon “Ordinary Things”’ minimalism, eschewing the intricate guitar counterpoint of his previous work in favor of piano lines inspired by the breezy melodies of Ethiopian jazz. The playing is often supported by just bass and drums, before pastoral wind and string orchestrations creep in—a breathtaking leap forward for Knishkowy as an arranger—informed at turns by Judee Sill’s neo-classicism and the mystic woodwinds of ‘80s Van Morrison.
On Cherries, Knishkowy creates full mise en scènes within verses, folding autobiographical moments of meditative self-evaluation into imagery from Italo Calvino’s 1957 novel The Baron in the Trees—most importantly, the titular anthropomorphic cherries. The book centres around a boy who makes the decision to live in the trees and engage in a selective relationship with the world around him. Knishkowy found resonances between the character’s self-imposed, imperfect notion of “freedom” and his own unsettled definition of the concept.
“The fundamental question of Cherries is what it means to be apart from the world, but still a part of it,” Knishkowy explains.
The Groundhog’s-Day-like experience of life in relative isolation feels built into the form of the album, too, with each song beginning like another morning breaking in a week without days. If there was a certain pandemic-era irony to the phrase “good timing” before, Cherries instead explores a more sincere reading. The recurrence of the titular line on “We Go Outside,” brings a break in musical tone, like a breath of fresh air after too many neurotic hours in the apartment (“It was all I could stand of myself / we go outside” followed by “we go outside / good timing”).
The Cherries Are Speaking’s recapitulations of and daring shifts away from Knishkowy’s previous work feed into its musical and thematic depth, which speaks far beyond the real-world context of its writing. The album is a bold but unforced gesture from an artist whose creative lifeblood is the sense of constantly pushing forward, creating new links in a daisy chain of a discography which seems to compound upon itself in significance with each new entry.
Dan Knishkowy – piano, vocals, mellotron Andrew Stocker – bass Caitlin Pasko – vocals David Lackner – saxophones, flute, clarinet Eric D. Johnson – vocals Macie Stewart – violin Sean Mullins – drums & percussion Vivian McConell- vocals
John Murry’s third album is starlit and wondrous, like being wrapped in the softest black velvet. It’s an album of startling imagery and insinuating melodies, of cold moonlight and searing heat. It’s a record that penetrates to the very heart of you, searing with its burning honesty, its unsparing intimacy and its twisted beauty.
Murry’s previous two albums had been responses to specific traumas: the centrepiece of his debut, ‘The Graceless Age’ – the astonishing ‘Little Colored Balloons’ – told of his near death from a heroin overdose; its follow-up, ‘A Short of History of Decay’, was recorded in the wake of Murry’s marriage failing. ‘The Stars Are God’s Bullet Holes’, coming six years after Murry left the US for Ireland, is the result of a period of stability, though in Murry’s case it’s all relative (“I think a lot of what we call contentment is delusional,” he observes).
The result is a record that shares its predecessors’ lyrical ingenuity, but this time the sadness is shot through with humour, albeit a spectacularly black humour. “Of course I’d die for you,” opens the title track. “You’d watch me, wouldn’t you?” ‘I Refuse To Believe You Could Love Me’ has Murry venturing into the realm of unexplained disappearances – an English aristocrat and an Australian politician: “Lord Lucan, he could not tread water / Prime Minister Holt? He never came up for air.
The humour combines with seriousness, too. The album’s lead single, ‘Oscar Wilde (Came Here to Make Fun of You)’ is allusive and elusive, with Murry singing: “Tell me: what immortal hand or eye / Is gonna give a damn enough to cry / When every day is like huffing lighter fluid / Take me to Reading Gaol with Oscar Wilde / I’ll get used to it. / Lock me up in Clerkenwell prison / I’ll blow a hole right through it.” The playfulness is reflected in the video, directed by the actor Aidan Gillen (Game of Thrones/Peaky Blinders/The Wire).
“We had been talking about various ideas for videos for a while,” Gillen says, “And I had this idea of John floating around my house – or did that happen in real life? – anyways I liked the idea of a John puppet floating around upside down and mentioned this to him, His ex had made this puppet with an uncanny likeness and I used whatever technology I had to hand – a phone camera, a stabilising gimbal and a two-euro macro lens to try and make something that looked nice for the puppet part. I mean, it’s not all in focus, but there a bit too much of that these days. I was asked for the puppet back, but I’d already lost it somewhere.”
The seriousness comes from the song’s opening: “I bought fertiliser and brake fluid / Who in the hell am I supposed to trust? / Sympathy ends in gas chambers / Oklahoma City shoulda been enough.” It’s one of the many moments on the record where violence – emotional or physical – rears up, but there’s a point to that: “All of the violence in the songs, it’s not to glorify it. Oklahoma City really should have been enough. These things are going on and on in the United States.”
There’s a reason for the volatility in Murry’s writing. “Violence has been a big part of my life,” he says. “It has been inflicted on me in ways that I was unable to control as a teenager, and as a child. I grew up in a place that was violent. I grew up in Mississippi. I grew up in a way that forced me, in order to survive in a culture like that, to posture. You don’t realise until later that that becomes a part of the way you see the world. The world becomes this intrusive thing and you’re protecting yourself against it. I also realised early on that if you don’t fight you’re just going to have to fight more.”
Key to this was his relationship with his adoptive family (“They didn’t adopt me; they bought me. I had a very abusive childhood”), relatives of the writer William Faulkner, which led to the final verse of ‘Di Kreutser Sonata’: “I will prune this family tree / Cause there’s nothing left but greed / Blood money and property / Love doesn’t mean a thing / When your last name is Murry / And / Should been swindle.”
“I think I’m probably telling the truth there,” Murry says. “The part about swindle, that actually would have been my last name [had he stayed with his birth family]. The second half of that song I just kind of made up while I was in there. Some of the lines I was amazed they came. I know I would censor that now. I would change it. I don’t know that I feel good about that, but I don’t feel bad about i t either. I don’t know that I really like that line, because I don’t know that it’s all that good. It’s a weird way to end the verse. But it’s there and it’s OK. Sometimes it’s OK to let these things rest and to accept you’re imperfect.”
With such lyrical vulnerability, the need for trust when they recorded at Rockfield Studio near Monmouth in Wales early in 2020 was total, and Murry found that bond with producer John Parish (PJ Harvey, Eels, Aldous Harding, This Is the Kit). “Trust matters a great deal,” he says. “All my mad ideas, John would facilitate those fully, and get the value of them.”
“John works instinctively and openly in the studio, and his songs are uncomfortably honest and revealing at times,” Parish says. “I think he encourages co-conspirators. He’s quick to identify & enlist whatever skills are in the room at any one time. I hope that I gave him the freedom to pursue outlandish ideas, and the confidence to know that someone was keeping track of them and would know how to fit the puzzle pieces together.
“John is a unique character, as you’ll know If you’ve spent five minutes with him. He is interested and distracted by everything, which makes him both a fascinating and frustrating person to work with. On many occasions the hardest part of my job was to identify the moment when all that was to be said about an idea had been said and it was now time to play the damn thing. John can keep a pretty riveting stream of consciousness going for as long as you’ve got.”
Together they brought out what was needed on ‘The Stars Are God’s Bullet Holes’: the simple pleasures of playing guitar figures, of working with sympathetic people, of playing music that has the same ragged looseness of Murry’s inspirations and fellow Mississipians RL Burnside and Greg Cartwright (Reigning Sound, Oblivians). No one would mistake it for a blues or garage punk record, but there’s that same organic sense to its rumbling guitars and contained wildness, nurtured by Parish.
One of the record’s delights is a stark and subdued version of Duran Duran’s ‘Ordinary World’, and it’s not surprising, perhaps, that a song about someone looking for the ordinary world in order to learn to survive might resonate with Murry. Has he found his own ordinary world? “In a sense I have,” he says. By which he means he has accepted his place in life is to make music, and what is important is the making of it, rather than what results might be. “I realise now I can come back from things like trauma and the decisions I have made. Ordinary for me has become just a matter of accepting who I am relative to what I do. I’ve pulled out each and every one of my ribs at night when I sleep. I don’t need God to do it.
“That song was about Simon Le Bon being in a grocery store. I didn’t know that until later. He realised that he was no longer famous in that way. He was shopping and realising, ‘I need to do this stuff on my own and figure out how to do it.’ Everything seemed surreal to him. I think in a similar way, I’ve been through the things I’m going to go through, so at this point I feel like I’ve moved through creating records that are about trauma. I’ve worked through those things.”
So, living in the ordinary world, does John Murry think he will ever be happy? “In everyday life, contentment is a goal. But William Faulkner said happiness is for vegetables. Is it? That would be incredibly bleak, and I don’t think it’s true. But is it not egoistic for us to seek contentment when we live in a world where we know there are children who are being paid to kill other people by American private corporations? I do think that as the world becomes a place that we look out into and see as being disrupted and as disrupting more and more of our lives, that we retreat into this idea of ‘find your bliss’. And I’m not sure how close that is to contentment or happiness. That’s the ordinary world.”
‘The Stars Are God’s Bullet Holes’ is not an album for an ordinary world, because it’s not an ordinary album. It’s an album to dive deep into and submerge yourself in, and to emerge from aware that this world is a remarkable place, and that John Murry is a remarkable artist.
‘The Stars Are God’s Bullet Holes’ is released June 26 on Submarine Cat Records
“Think I’m Going Weird: Artefacts From The British Psychedelic Scene” 5CD box set (Grapefruit UK)
Grapefruit’s landmark 100th release.
A definitive overview of the British psychedelic scene, an epic five-CD/book set that includes more than 50 minutes of previously unreleased music from the halcyon period 1966-68.
Including the major acts of the era (The Who, Traffic, Small Faces, The Move, Procol Harum, Incredible String Band, Family, Crazy World of Arthur Brown etc), ‘Think I’m Going Weird: Original Artefacts From The British Psychedelic Scene 1966-68’ features many bands who also played London’s underground dungeons during the Summer Of Love.
Featuring studio demos from the likes of Tintern Abbey, The Soft Machine, Mabel Greer’s Toyshop, Genesis, Mandrake Paddle Steamer, Dantalian’s Chariot and others plus numerous cult 45s (July, Caleb, Vamp, Blossom Toes, Sweet Feeling, etc) and fascinating album cuts from such scene stalwarts as Tomorrow, Fairport Convention, Kaleidoscope, The Deviants and Elmer Gantry’s Velvet Opera.
Perhaps most enticingly of all, the collection includes a number of hitherto-unknown recordings by bands who are only now gaining their first public exposure including Eyes Of Blond, Tinsel Arcade, Crystal Ship (whose contribution features lyrics from Pete Brown) and the semi-mythical 117, such a legendary name from the era’s handbills and posters that they even had a UK psych fanzine named after them in the ‘90s.
A dazzling feat of licensing and research, ‘Think I’m Going Weird…’ comes in a 60-page A5 book format with 25,000-word track-by-track annotation with some extraordinary and rare photos and memorabilia.
For anyone even remotely interested in British psychedelia, it’s simply an essential purchase.
