The Dukes of Stratosphear – You’re A Good Man Albert Brown

September 26th, 2009

In my capacity as overseer of this nonsense website, I declare this weekend an official The Dukes of Stratosphear weekend.

you're a good man albert brown cover

Thus far we’ve had the video for the Beatles-esque ‘The Mole From the Ministry‘ and a review of their anthology album Chips From the Chocolate Fireball. We’ve even had the vid for The Beatles’ ‘I Am the Walrus‘, an inspiration for the aforementioned ‘Mole…’

We shall end this impromptu celebration of the 1980′s psychedelic throwbacks with a bit of jaunty, music-hall, roll-out-the-bloomin-barrel psych-pop in the guise of ‘You’re a Good Man Albert Brown (Curse You Red Barrel)’.

music vid, psychedelic rock

The Dukes of Stratosphear – Chips From the Chocolate Fireball

September 25th, 2009

If spotting obscure references to even more obscure 60′s psychedelia is your thing (and there are, indeed, worse things you could be doing with your spare time) then The Dukes Of Stratosphear is the band for you.

the dukes of stratosphear - chips from the chocolate fireball album cover

A side-project of new wave act, XTC, The Dukes Of Stratosphear released an EP 25 O’Clock in 1985 and the album Psionic Psunspot in 1987. Chips From the Chocolate Fireball is the aforementioned records collected onto one disc, and what a belter it is.

Swimming in a sea of Tomorrow, Kaleidoscope, Pink Floyd, Grapefruit and numerous other British and US psychedelic bands, The Dukes Of Stratosphear dip into this proud heritage, gifting us an album that sounds like it’s the real deal and could easily pass for a lost work from that much cherished era.

The Beatles – I Am the Walrus

September 25th, 2009

Following on from posting The Dukes of Stratosphear’s ‘The Mole From the Ministry’ earlier today, I thought it would be nice to throw down the Beatles’ ‘I Am the Walrus’, so comparisons can be made.

i am the walrus cover

Musically, ‘The Mole From the Ministry’ borrows elements of both ‘I Am the Walrus’ and ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’, whilst the video is clearly an affectionate pastiche of this and the ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ promo.

music vid, psychedelic rock

The Dukes of Stratosphear – The Mole From the Ministry

September 25th, 2009

Bob on! Some psychedelic throwback music from 1985 – The wonderful Dukes of Stratosphear with the immaculate ‘The Mole From the Ministry’.

Taken from the EP 25 O’Clock, musically and visually the influence of The Beatles’ ‘I Am the Walrus’ is hugely evident, right down to the slightly creepy animal masks, and it’s well worth six minutes of anybody’s time.

music vid, psychedelic rock

Circulus – My Body is Made of Sunlight

September 18th, 2009

Circulus are a rather excellent modern-day psychedelic-folk act, who look as though they’ve taken one double-dip of lysergic acid diethylamide too many and woken up in the late sixties/early seventies – a better time for music, when this type of thing was the norm.

psychedelic folksters circulus

Fusing Elizabethan elements into their witch’s cauldron of evocative and pastoral psychedelia, Circulus are quite unlike anything else doing the rounds today. HFoS applauds this non-conformity and a sound that reaches out from the perfumed gardens and Jostick-scented abodes of 1971.

music vid, prog rock, psych-folk

Tyrannosaurus Rex – Unicorn

September 10th, 2009

Long before Marc Bolan turned electric, installed a rhythm section, shortened the name of his band to T Rex and launched a full fontal assault on the UK charts with his hugely successful brand of glam rock, there was Tyrannosaurus Rex, the two man psychedelic-folk outfit who ruled the underground during the late ’60s.

t rex - unicorn album cover

John Peel favourites, the band comprised of Bolan on vocals and guitar, and the wildly hedonistic Steve Peregrin Took – a man who’d named himself after a Hobbit – on percussion, backing vocals and anything else that came to hand. They swam in an enchanted sea of acoustic folk-rock, heavily influenced by the psychedelic scene, with tales of the fantastic straight out of Tolkien, blended with the poetry of Blake.

Unicorn, released in 1969, was their third album and Took’s last.

album reviews, psych-folk

Gong – 2032

September 2nd, 2009

Gong was never a band to do things by the book. Throughout the seventies they released a succession of psychedelic, progressive rock albums that could be considered outlandish – some might say stark raving mad – and avant-garde even by the standards of those insane times.

gong - 2032 album cover

Think the arthouse stylings of The Soft Machine (of whom Gong founder Daevid Allen was also once a member) corralled in with the French New Wave madness of a Jean-Luc Goddard film and you might just find yourself skirting close to the same solar system that Gong inhabited.

41 years on from the band’s inception and Gong have a new album coming out, 2032, and it’s one that’s billed as the next instalment in perhaps the most celebrated of works in their considerable canon, the “Radio Gnome Trilogy” – consisting of the classic albums: Flying Teapot (1973), Angel’s Egg (1973) and You (1974).

The Idle Hands – All Night Sinnin

September 1st, 2009

All Night Sinnin’, the fifth album release from Chesterfield’s The Idle Hands, does what you’d expect from a modern-day blues rock combo without straying onto the path of mundane pedestrianism that often waylays lesser acts in a musical genre nowadays championed by greying men old enough to remember the original Brit blues invasion of the sixties.

idle hands - all night sinnin album cover

The Idle Hands deliver the goods, firing on all cylinders to produce an album worthy of a band who enjoy a formidable reputation as a live act, injecting it with the same passion that I’m sure also stokes their stage shows.

album reviews, blues rock, classic rock