{"id":193427,"date":"2018-01-04T18:47:51","date_gmt":"2018-01-04T18:47:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/siteproxy.ruqli.workers.dev:443\/http\/recordcollectormag.com\/reviews\/album\/psych-collector-12"},"modified":"2020-04-08T09:34:18","modified_gmt":"2020-04-08T09:34:18","slug":"psych-collector-12","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/siteproxy.ruqli.workers.dev:443\/https\/recordcollectormag.com\/reviews\/album\/psych-collector-12","title":{"rendered":"Psych* Collector"},"content":{"rendered":"

An elephant will never forget but human beings are more absent-minded than our pachyderm cousins. This might explain why so few pub quizzers can recall the name ELEPHANT\u2019S MEMORY <\/b>despite it appearing on the sleeve of an album by one of popular music\u2019s most beloved artists. They didn\u2019t just collaborate with Yoko Ono, however. They also worked with her two-bit tagalong husband John. Elephant\u2019s Memory were the backing band for John & Yoko\u2019s Some Time In New York <\/i>City (1972) and Ono\u2019s superior Approximately Infinite Universe <\/i>(1972) and you can see why J-Yo were so attracted to the Big Apple-based combo by listening to their self-titled debut album from 1969 (***\u00a0<\/span>Elemental<\/b>). Thanks to their seven members whose interests spanned poetry, jazz, John Cage, the blues, motorcycles and ice skating, the band\u2019s wildly giant sound feels like something you\u2019d expect of an acid-rich Californian hippie commune, rather than a style you\u2019d necessarily associate with NYC, especially considering The Velvet Underground\u2019s mission to bum everybody out was well underway by then. It\u2019s a bit over the top in places but your scatty homo sapien brain will soon forget the dodgier moments.<\/p>\n

Yesterdays Folks <\/i><\/b>(****\u00a0<\/span>Elemental<\/b>), the sole album by Connecticut\u2019s US \u201969 <\/b>was also released, appropriately enough, in 1969. It\u2019s an eclectic collection, the opening number featuring sitar licks, untamed drum clatters and idealistic lyrics about never being a prisoner anymore. Others are bass-heavy and horn-laden, offering some proper funk\/soul batterings which sit somewhere between James Brown and proto-punk. Amid spiralling polyrhythms, the flute solos take the spotlight on the jazzier African Sunshine. There\u2019s an orchestral ballad thrown in somewhere. The vocals are bluesily raucous and bug-eyed throughout. It climaxes with an experimental 10-minute track sung from the point of view of a space alien, less US \u201969 than the sound of Jupiter in 3,000 years\u2019 time.<\/p>\n

I Said, She Said, Ah Cid <\/i><\/b>(**\u00a0<\/span>Grapefruit<\/b>) is an anthology of the Alshire imprint, trumpeted as \u201cprobably the most prolific budget label of the 60s\u201d. The third disc is a various artists affair while Disc Two is dedicated entirely to the output of The California Poppy Pickers complete with their own-brand interpretations of Beatles hits and songs from Hair<\/i>. Squeezed onto the first disc are full albums by The Animated Egg and 101 Strings. The former\u2019s psychedelic surf instrumentals certainly scream \u201cIT IS THE 60s\u201d.<\/p>\n

Sock It My Way is an interesting number but for the most part the album\u2019s kitschy and superficial nature was readymade for novelty nostalgia parties where you might force guests to dress as Twiggy and pretend to be high while surrounded by unappetising prawn cocktails. 101 Strings\u2019 orchestral lounge pop is a little hipper if still best suited as quirky background muzak for an icky Barbarella<\/i>-themed swingers\u2019 meeting. There was a cynical stack- \u2019em-high and sell-\u2019em-cheap nature to the whole affair, a sobering reminder that the 60s were being repackaged, manipulated, sold out and soiled even as they were happening.<\/p>\n

\u201cPsychsploitation\u201d might have been a good way to describe Alshire\u2019s agenda. That word also happens to be the mantra of THE PREFAB MESSIAHS<\/b>, a group of Massachusetts misfits who formed in the 80s, split soon after, and resurfaced in the 2010s. You can see why their brand of slightly ramshackle lo-fi psych seemed freshly relevant in a countercultural climate that had embraced Thee Oh Sees, Mac DeMarco and Ariel Pink. The Messiahs\u2019 music is as charmingly homespun as their cartoon artwork and animated videos. Sometimes Sunnydaze combines blissfulness and melancholy as sublimely as Phase Two of The Flaming Lips. Everything U No sneers irreverently from behind the garage doors. If their lyrics appear by-numbers at first, what with \u201cpower\u201d being rhymed with \u201cflower\u201d and so forth, peer a little closer and you\u2019ll discover there\u2019s slyer and wittier stuff going on. On Psychsploitation Today <\/i><\/b>(***\u00a0<\/span>Lolipop\/Burger<\/b>) are The Prefab Messiahs condemning psychsploitation or pursuing it? Both, maybe. Whatever the hell they\u2019re up to, it\u2019s a commendable hoot.<\/p>\n

While Nick Cave and Roger Waters thrash out the ethics of performing in Israel, perhaps it\u2019s best to duck out of the quarrel altogether and shine a spotlight on the native musicians who are already based there. Who needs the jaded dad rock of Cave or Waters anyway? Not when the Tel Aviv-based outfit OUZO BAZOOKA <\/b>are around to spread \u201ccultural coexistence [and] vigorous creation\u201d. 1001 Nights <\/i><\/b>(****\u00a0<\/span>Stolen Body<\/b>) offers five high-spirited tracks which draw from a broad range of Eastern and Western influences including Selda Ba\u011f<\/span>can, Erkin Koray, Grand Funk Railroad and Link Wray. By the time Nile River kicks in, if your booty isn\u2019t shaking itself into a fever (voluntarily or otherwise) then you might need to see a doctor to remove that stick from your…<\/p>\n

Archive recordings of Indonesian psych from the early 70s would no doubt pique the interest of Ouzo Bazooka as well as anyone else with even a passing penchant for seeing pink elephants. With a similar knack for pairing Anglo- American rock music with the traditions of their homeland, SHARK MOVE<\/b>\u2019s outrageously liberated sound was genuinely underground and seriously rebellious at a time when the Suharto dictatorship ruled the roost. Ghede Chokra\u2019s <\/b>(****\u00a0<\/span>Outer Battery<\/b>) features proggy flutework and organ solos aplenty but it\u2019s in the moments when leader Benny Soebardja bursts into his heaven-sent falsetto that the goosebumps really get going. Brain-blowing and brave to boot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An elephant will never forget but human beings are more absent-minded than our pachyderm cousins. This might explain why so few pub quizzers can recall the name ELEPHANT\u2019S MEMORY despite it appearing on the sleeve of an album by one of popular music\u2019s most beloved artists. They didn\u2019t just collaborate with Yoko Ono, however. They also worked \u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8023,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,16],"tags":[585],"issue":[10093],"class_list":["post-193427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album","category-reviews","tag-various-artists","issue-january-2018"],"apple_news_notices":[],"yoast_head":"\nPsych* Collector - Record Collector Magazine<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"An elephant will never forget but human beings are more absent-minded than our pachyderm cousins. 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