King Crimson react to the news HFoS survived another Christmas

This year I’ve resolved to beat the post-seasonal hangover by remaining drunk, which, thus far, has proved to be an agreeable tactic… Pay no heed if my eyes glaze over or I lose my train of thought mid

As is customary this time of year, I will be making one or two rash promises, none of which I have any intention of adhering to. So we might as well get those out of the way first.

2012 will see a new look website and a raft of new features, as well as the return of some old ones.

There, pretty much the same as last year, minus the enthusiasm.

Anyhoop, as Head Full of Snow enters its fourth year (with the official third birthday at the start of next month), I can promise more of the same, with reviews of prog, psych, folk and – yes – even jazz rock, from the days of yore, to look forward to.

This, of course, is dependent on whether you have anything better in life to aspire to, outside the semi-coherent ramblings of a drunk man, suffering delusions of grandeur. If not, sit down and make yourself at home.

There will also be some more of the only new feature to rear its hackneyed head last year; the HFoS Mixtape. Never fear, I will keep flogging that dead horse until somebody admits listening to one all the way through.

Aside from such joviality, I’ll continue posting as regularly as time will allow, beginning next week with… Oh, I’ve not decided yet. Until then, share in my addiction:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_g-gTcohSQ

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Four bank holidays in the space of 11 days? HFoS cannot pass up on such an audacious challenge to one’s liver as this. Therefore, we will be back next week or possibly the week after, dependent, of course, on whether:

A)    I am still alive

B)    I am still alive

Can’t say much fairer than that. In the meantime, treat yourselves – go on, Jesus died so we could have at least two of these four days off – to a bit of The Soft Machine, when they was wee babbers. Well, maybe not “wee babbers”, but in the early days when they were the post-Daevid Allen trio of Robert Wyatt (drums, vocals), Kevin Ayers (bass, eyeshadow) and the mighty Mike Ratledge (keyboard, hairdo). And it’s live!

Yes, it’s their early signature of psychedelic madness, “Hope for Happiness”, from 1968′s enormously enjoyable debut album, Volume One.

Captivating – albeit badly edited – stuff, old chap.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pqsm3C8nvFU

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Somebody informs ELP that HFoS will be around for another year

The more eagle-eyed among you may have noticed that yesterday was in fact the anniversary of this date, but it’ll come as no surprise to anybody who visits regularly to learn that we forgot.

Still, a balloon has been released into the wild and a trilby has been sported at a jauntier angle than usual, to the mark this (belated) occasion.

In the absence of any other form of celebration, have a spot of Italian proggers P.F.M. and their very own ‘Celebration’, from the 1973 album, Photos of Ghosts.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esHEPt41Sjc

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Appearing on 1971′s From the Witchwood, ‘The Hangman and the Papist is a rich swirl of Rick Wakeman’s church organ noodling and Dave Cousins’ atmospheric vocals. A parable on religious divide, ‘The Hangman and the Papist’ is powerful stuff indeed.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDDy6qXIWC8

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Recorded for the now OOP Fruits de Mer Vol. Seven, Cranium Pie take the psychedelic-pop oddness of the original and turns up the insanity factor.

The result is a haywire, acid-charged headfuck that throws in a horizon-scorching guitar, backwards vocals and a hauntingly astral, vocoder chorus.

Nice.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3YyU0UGbkw

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Their one and only 1971 concept album, Three Parts to My Soul, was released on the Vertigo label to the sound of one hand clapping and underwhelming critical indifference and is said to have sold as few as 100 copies. In the intervening years it has been touted as one of the rarest albums to have been put out by Vertigo and original vinyl copies are priced in the three figure bracket among collectors of obscure prog.

‘Evil Woman’s Manly Child’ is bizarre and sinister, with an almost bluesy hail and brimstone approach; certainly not what you would expect from somebody as innocuous as a Swansea Professor (as in the case of frontman, Keith Keyes).

It’s also infectiously good stuff, and something that the rest of Three Parts to My Soul unfortunately fails to live up to.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IToDLUkDz1E

‘Evil Woman’s Manly Child’ appears on Dr. Z’s Three Parts to My Soul, pricey copies of which are available to buy from Amazon.co.uk

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Beggar’s Opera, playing as though their lives depend on it.

‘Raymond’s Road’, the standout track on the Scottish prog band’s 1970 album, Act One, is a medley of classical soundbites, spun together to create one magnificent whole. With twenty times more keyboard noodling than government guidelines advise, it’s not hard to see why we singled out ‘Raymond’s Road’ in our review of Act One, the other week, as being the crowning glory on an album that now sits firmly in the HFoS Prog Top 10 (coming soon).

This performance of ‘Raymond’s Road’ is taken from German TV, where many a British prog band found airtime during the seventies, and is, for want of a better term, bloody marvellous! Boiling down to a crazy duel between keyboards and drums, it leaves you little time to catch breath as you gasp in amazement… Possibly.

Whatever. All I know is that Beggar’s Opera provide us with nine minutes of prog bliss. The original album version runs just shy of 12 minutes, but one can excuse them shutting up shop early when there’s that amount of explosives beneath their feet.

Let’s hope they all made it home in one piece.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYGAOeUW9kA

‘Raymond’s Road’ appears on the album Act One, which is available to buy from Amazon.co.uk

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhwEzKXf5rk

With its haunting piano melody and Judy Dyble’s spectral vocal, it lingers in the memory far beyond the two and a half minute running time.

‘Velvet to Atone’ also appears on the Pye and Dawn Records compilation box set Cave of Clear Light, available from Amazon.co.uk

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Performing the dastardly deed are three fragrant fraulines* from somewhere in the UK, who go by the name of the Hausfrauen Experiment.

It’s safe to say I’m not a particularly big fan of electronic music pioneers Silver Apples, though ‘Oscillations’ is one of the better tracks on their self-titled 1968 debut album. Its hypnotic, trance-like quality is successfully reproduced here, setting up this four-track EP nicely.

Next up is the Hausfrauen take on ‘Spirit of the Age’, the Hawkwind song taken from their Robert Calvert-era, 1977 album Quark, Strangeness and Charm. It transplants the space rock sparseness of the original for a space synth sparseness and a cheerier version of a Throbbing Gristle-style industrial vibe.

The final two tracks, Brian Eno’s ‘Baby’s On Fire’ and Cockney Rebel’s ‘Sebastian’ – neither of which I was previously familiar with – are both heavy slices of synthesised sound and otherworldly vocals, the highlight being the ethereal and haunting feel that saturates ‘Sebastian’.

Overall this is quite a departure for the Fruits de Mer label, being as it is an exponent of the psych/prog/acid-folk sound, here entrenched in a world of electro chaos that pulsates with a late seventies/early eighties synth heartbeat.

The Hausfrauen Experiment interpretations of these four songs are effectively rendered, and despite the shift in sound, Volume 12 should give the record label yet another reason to celebrate.

Hausfrauen Experiment MySpace page

*Please excuse the painfully executed alliteration.

The Hausfrauen Experiment is coming soon and available for pre-order from the Fruits de Mer website. In the meantime, checkout their version of Hawkwind’s ‘Spirit of the Age’:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNJR7ySvq_c

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Their brand of flowery-pop tickled the underskirts of psychedelia but never managed to make an impact on their home shore. However, the brightly-attired troupe did manage a minor hit in Holland with the Toytown psych of ‘Muffin Man’.

‘The Hum-Gum Tree’ is a slightly harder-edged example of their output, and an absolutely splendid one at that.

Taken from their one and only album, 1969′s The World of Oz, ‘The Hum Gum Tree’ boasts a psychedelic feel without compromising on the poppiness, and lyrics that firmly belong in the realms of sinister childhood fantasy.

There will be a review of the album The World of Oz in these very pages, next week.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79jnwlQvnmg

The World of Oz is available to buy from Amazon.co.uk

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A Pink Floyd rarity of sorts, ‘Point Me At the Sky’ was the band’s fifth UK single, released in December 1968. A poor showing in the charts meant Pink Floyd didn’t release another UK single until 1979′s ‘Another Brick in the Wall’, by which time their sound had changed somewhat considerably.

Written by Roger Waters and David Gilmour, ‘Point Me At the Sky’ places us firmly in post-Barrett territory, though the futuristic lyrics shimmering effortlessly across the heavy psych hark back to the Madcap’s style.

I’ve heard the Geese cover on A Phase We’re Going Through and its a corker. However, until the June release here’s the original. Top stuff!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lao8pnUI0Rc

Fruits de Mer Records Interview – Part 1

Fruits de Mer Records Interview – Part 2

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Illness has struck at HFoS Towers, rendering the principle scribe bereft of what little faculties he had remaining.

The good news – or bad, dependent upon your point of view – is that efforts have been made to ensure things get back to normal next week. Several strong drinks and a damn good talking to, should sort it.

Therefore, as promised TWO weeks ago, we will be publishing the first part of the interview with Fruits de Mer Records NEXT WEEK, on pain of death.

Anybody who has contacted us regarding reviews, interviews etc. please bare with us. Things should be back on track next week.

In the meantime, have some Roy Wood and Wizzard, with all nine minutes of ‘Wear A Fast Gun’, from 1973′s excellent Wizzard Brew. Always good in times of a crisis (imagined, or otherwise).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yy6oBMpzdH8

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The Canterbury scene stalwarts sprang from the Wilde Flowers, the band that went on to split its membership between Caravan and Soft Machine, and ‘Ride’ is a gentle breeze floating on the warm summer air of a lush pastoral setting, somewhere in England, 1968.

Pye Hastings’ vocals carry the mood perfectly and Dave Sinclair’s organ noodling is, as always, spot on.

One to be heard drifting from perfumed gardens everywhere.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmGyAEWoMIU

On a separate note, next week will see part one of our interview with psych and prog revisionists, Fruits de Mer Records. So make sure you don’t miss that.

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Following on from Us & Them’s splendid ‘Julia Dream’ reworking for the previous Fruits de Mer release, the record label that shouldn’t work but bloody well does, have tapped the Pink Floyd psychedelic vein once more to bring us mere mortals  the deity-like splendour that is Vibravoid’s What Colour is Pink? EP.

Vibravoid, the German psychedelic rock outfit, are no strangers to the Fruits de Mer experience, having already appeared on the Krautrock Sensation EP. This time around the likes of Can and Kraftwerk are replaced solely by acid rock’s highest profile exponents, Pink Floyd.

Lifting three tracks from the Floyd’s second album, 1968′s excellent A Saucerful of Secrets, Vibravoid let rip with a blistering rendition of space-rock opus ‘Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun’, followed by fellow interstellar explorations ‘Let There Be More Light’ and ‘A Saucerful of Secrets’.

Choosing to cover anything from Pink Floyd’s early days is always going to leave a band open to fierce criticism from the handful of Barrett obsessives holed up on painfully obscure and insanely miopic forums the length and breadth of the interwebs. Even though none of the three tracks appearing on What Colour is Pink? featured lead vocals or stemmed from the pen of the Madcap himself, one can imagine virtual knives already being sharpened, ready to cut these Teutonic upstarts down to size for having the temerity to tackle the mighty Floyd.

No such reckless knifeplay here though. Vibravoid’s take on both ‘Set the Controls…’ and ‘Let There Be More Light’, are spot on interpretations of the originals, never straying far beyond the radar of the source material, but injecting enough nuances to ensure they remain relevant and interesting. ‘A Saucerful of Secrets’ manages to condense the original’s 12 minutes of interplanetary meandering into just three and a half. No easy feat, to be sure.

What Colour is Pink? may not sport the innovation of the Us & Them mash-up of ‘Julia Dream’ and ‘All the Pretty Little Horses’, last time around, but so what? When something sounds this good, it doesn’t matter.

Full marks to the Fruits de Mer team once again, and to those travellers beyond the realm of the ninth dimension, Vibravoid. Long may they keep the psychedelic flag flying.

The What Colour is Pink? EP – Limited edition pink vinyl 7″, with pink labels in a pink sleeve – goes on sale April 2010,  and will be available through the Fruits de Mer Records website. Be warned, these vinyl superlatives have a habit of selling out fast!

Witness for yourself Vibravoid’s sonic-barrier splintering version of ‘Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun’:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sP2xi7bxBYw

Vibravoid’s MySpace page

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Thankfully, ‘House Carpenter’ is a jazz-free zone, instead incorporating Renbourn’s sitar and Jansch’s banjo to produce one soothing psychedelic folk ensemble. Singer Jacqui McShee and Jansch share vocal duties on the unique arrangement of this traditional folk song, which, in turn, is based upon ye olde ballad, ‘The Daemon Lover’.

‘House Carpenter’ appears on Pentangle’s 1969 album Basket of Light, once voted in an Observer poll as one of the top 100 British albums of all time. This live performance  comes from a BBC special recorded in 1970.

Should settle you in nicely for the weekend.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4jXfMEu1YY

Basket of Light by Pentangle is issued on Sanctuary records and available from Amazon.co.uk

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Well, as I’m never less than a man of my word,  I shall be featuring some new stuff in the not too distant future, possibly under a big, flowery banner bearing a self-assuring title such as “New-Psych” or “New-Prog”,  just so that I remain fully aware we’re not wandering too far from my original remit and I can continue to sleep at night.

Anyway, incoherent babbling aside, and keeping on the theme of new stuff, here’s a video from The High Dials, a psychedelic pop band from Montreal, Canada. Taken from their 2008 album Moon Country, ‘Killer of Dragons’ sports a sumptuous video pitched somewhere between The Lord of the Rings and Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

The song’s not bad either, mixing the sound of the more laidback American psych-pop/garage bands of the 60s with a distinctly modern influence.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQtHM_uibEU

You can find out more about The High Dials at their offical website and myspace page.

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Jeff Lynne and the Idle Race boys react to the news HFoS is one year old

365 days may have passed since the first proper posting here, but as I promised at the start of the year, we shan’t be doing anything to celebrate.

If the desire takes you though, feel free to sport your trilby at a jauntier angle than per usual.

In the absence of a cake or balloons, try a bit of Birmingham’s own Idle Race instead. From their 1968 debut The Birthday Party, the aptly titled ‘Birthday’.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOKFpEl_EPU

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Although known primarily as practitioners of no-nonsense blues-rock boogie, Humble Pie’s second album, Town and Country, did depart to greener pastures, with an almost entirely acoustic and altogether more pastoral sound demonstrated thereon.

It yielded this psychedelic gem, ‘The Light of Love’, easily the best thing Steve Marriot recorded post Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake.

Written by bassist and former Spooky Tooth member, Greg Ridley, ‘The Light of Love’ resonates with the sound we at HFoS love. The sitar that permeates throughout gives it that Eastern-tinged mysticism prevalent within a certain brand of acid rock. It captures the essence of a 1960′s bedsit and sitting cross-legged on the floor around a Dansette record player, toking on Moroccan black as joss sticks burn off-camera.

Arriving in 1969, when the shift towards progressive rock had already rendered psychedelia a spent force, ‘The Light of Love’ provides a decorous farewell.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lovnNoGVsOk

‘The Light of Love’ appears on Town and Country by Humble Pie, available from Amazon.co.uk

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Probably the most famous example of authority-baiting via the medium of song is The Beatles’ ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’, although John Lennon dismissed such speculation as mere coincidence. Billy Nicholls was another such artist willing to nail his colours to the mast, penning ‘London Social Degree’, taken from his 1968 album Would You Believe.

A backing vocalist on the Small Faces’ psychedelic tour de force Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake and The Nice’s ‘The Thoughts of Emerlist Davjack’, from the album of the same name, Billy Nicholls got his break when he signed to Immediate, the label of former Rolling Stones’ manager and producer, Andrew Loog Oldham. The album, Would You Believe, was touted as the British answer to The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds, but due to a severe case of cash-strappeditis at Immediate only 100 copies were issued. The album was eventually released on Nicholls’ own label in 1998.

‘London Social Degree’ is a hymn to the all-encompassing powers of LSD – the old chestnuts of free love and furthering the mind – from a time when the wide range of casualties had yet to be revealed. It’s a bouncy burst of psychedelic pop, encapsulating the sound of a 60′s swinging London that’s as far from the underground UFO Club and Middle Earth scene of the Floyd, Soft Machine et al, as it’s possible to get.

Nevertheless it’s still some solid psych-pop, worthy of an airing right here on these very pages.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sd_43mm9RaU

As it’s now deleted, the Expanded edition of Would You Believe can be picked up for silly money over at Amazon.co.uk

Billy Nicholls’ website

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In doing so, The Smoke improved on the original tenfold.

Not a difficult task, the less charitable among us might say, but by removing the “learn-to-play” sitar riff that jars the original they made it A) instantly listenable and B) a damn sight more cohesive.

The Smoke, who originated in York, became famous in 1967 when their debut single, ‘My Friend Jack’, received a blanket ban by the BBC. It would seem a song about the popular craze of ingesting LSD-soaked sugarlumps – “My Friend Jack eats sugarlumps…” – was a step too far for the British Broadcasting Company. Nevertheless, society survived and The Smoke went on to release one album, It’s Smoke Time, and a number of singles. ‘Utterly Simple’ was intended for release, but the band’s unexpected demise saw it abandoned.

The cod-wisdom of the lyrics and the melody remain the same, but The Smoke’s version of ‘Utterly Simple’ is an altogether different, and friendlier, beast.

This user-created vid features lots of shots of Mary Quant, for whatever reason.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsKfBUBhrgY

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