Edit: I am reliably informed by the good people at Fruits de Mer Records that this is the first review of this forthcoming Vibravoid release anywhere.
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.
Vanessa Williams once warbled, “save the best till last,” and though her insipid brand of asinine drivel is as welcome at Head Full of Snow as a particularly nasty bout of necrotizing fasciitis, as far as Compilation Week is concerned, we find ourselves obliged to heed her advice and have, indeed, saved the best till last.
Real Life Permanent Dreams – a cornucopia of British psychedelia 1965-1970, from Sanctuary Records, is exactly what it says on the tin, a veritable abundance of psychedelic joy that’s as essential as it is comprehensive.
With four discs (yes, four), a 46-page, oversized glossy booklet, and a monumental 99 tracks that kick off with the original demo version of The Smoke’s ‘My Friend Jack’, is there really any need for me to continue this review?
As far as label compilations go, this three-disc profusion of prog and psychedelic prime cuts is difficult to beat.
Spirit of Joy gathers some of the better and the lesser known tracks from the considerable underground canon hosted by Polydor and its imprints during the golden age of music. From The Crazy World of Arthur Brown to Focus, stopping at such picturesque stops as Eric Burdon, Supersister, and Barclay James Harvest in between.
Despite the rare low point (is there really any need for the jazz stylings of John McLaughlin or Ginger Baker’s Air Force?), Mark Powell, who compiled the tracks and penned the extensive liner notes in the 45 page booklet, has put together a definitive retrospective of the surprisingly underground output of the traditionally overground label.
Cave of Clear Light from Esoteric Recordings does for Pye Records – and its progressive imprint Dawn – what Spirit of Joy and Breath of Fresh Air do respectively for Polydor, and EMI’s prog label Harvest.
That is, deliver a comprehensive, beautifully packaged three-disc extravaganza complete with extensively detailed booklet.
Once again compiled by Mark Powell, behind both the Polydor and Harvest excursions, Cave of Clear Light shines the fiery torch on the label that’s been dismissed as a poor relation to the more dedicated exponents of the psychedelic and progressive sound. Unfairly so, one might add, as Pye/Dawn had an impressive roster of artists on the books, even if the vast majority never so much as tickled the public conscious.
Obviously, that’s the style of output HFoS thrives on.
Following on from last year’s wholly unsuccessful Procol Harum week, HFoS has decided to launch another week-long, themed extravaganza – Compilation week. Kicking things off is the just released Looking Towards the Sky:
Reissue imprint Fantastic Voyage have made it their mission to excavate the legacy of long extinct UK label, Ember Records. Following much deep mining they’ve struck upon a rich vein of psychedelic/progressive sounds and Looking Towards the Sky pulls together the first part of this sonic yield.
We’re in obscurity heaven here, with the rarities coming thick and fast. I’m not ashamed to admit I’ve only heard one of the bands included on this compilation, Blonde on Blonde, but it’s safe to say there are one or two more I’d like to hear more of.
If you’ve checked out the ‘Groovy Cats’ tab on this site, you may have already tried out the recommendations thereon. Each one, naturally, is a winner, else they wouldn’t be listed at this altar to outstanding quality.
Trip Inside This House, is one such site. A cornucopia of psychedelic goodness, taking its name from The 13th Floor Elevators track ‘Slip Inside This House’ and overseen by the encyclopaedic mind gone high that is valis Hertel. A fairly regular series on the Trip Inside This House site is Ten Questions, where valis grills someone currently active on the psych music scene (playing, writing, bloody great fan), so the rest of us can discover what makes these polychromatic peoples tick.
Being the crusading force of originality that HFoS is, we decided to nick this idea wholesale and turn the technicolour tables on the man who poses the questions, valis himself.
The man knows his stuff and isn’t afraid to wax lyrical on all things mind-expandingly musical. One of the many thoroughly interesting, kaleidoscopic troubadours writing on the genre today.
Those adverse to infectious enthusiasm and the desire to share it with others need not apply.
‘Losing You’ is a psychedelic-edged track from little known rock act Blue Beard, who are so arcane, in fact, that their album never got beyond test pressings.
It’s taken from the recently released compilation Looking Towards the Sky, which collects together the psychedelic, prog and folk rock output of the UK’s indie label, Ember Records, between 1969 and 1972. Needless to say it’s obscurity heaven with acts so deep underground, you’ll need Steve Austin implants to hear them.
Following his departure from the Small Faces, the late Steve Marriott formed hard/blues-rock combo and supergroup of sorts, Humble Pie.
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.
Good news for anybody taken by the psychedelic stylings and off-the-wall showmanship of mad-as-a-shrews-hatbox Arthur Brown, as February 22nd 2010 sees the release of a 2-disc deluxe edition of 1968’s self-titled The Crazy World of Arthur Brown.
Yes, the good people at Esoteric have given the one and only album by this iconic, psycho-delic rock band the royal treatment, delivering a remastered version of the original album and a host of extras, such as alternate mixes, a BBC session from 1968 and rare single tracks, including the wonderfully anarchic piss-take of the peace and love movement, ‘Give Him a Flower’ – “Don’t ‘it ‘im wiv a bottle, Give him a flower”
If one were to think of a psychedelic rock band that was largely ignored during its day, yet has gone on to acquire a cult following in the intervening years, rocketing them to the status of psychedelic legends, then Tomorrow would fit the bill perfectly.
Despite being the first band to record a BBC Radio 1 John Peel session, commercial success eluded them, and even a firm, if brief, following on the underground wasn’t enough to make 1968’s self-titled debut anything more than a lone shot at album glory.
The fickle nature of swinging 60’s musical adulation may have prevented Tomorrow from recording beyond 1967, but it doesn’t stop the eponymous record from being anything short of a minor classic.
If one were to make a list of songs by Traffic worthy of covering, ‘Utterly Simple’ from Mr. Fantasywould surely be somewhere near the bottom. However, in 1968 it seems nobody had shown this list to The Smoke, as they recorded Dave Mason’s sitar-by-numbers ode to flower power-induced, pseudo-philosophical bollocks, just prior to splitting up.
In doing so, The Smoke improved on the original tenfold.
2010. It may be January 5th, but the Christmas decorations are still up at HFoS towers, and the festive spirit will not wear off until at least April. But enough of that. The New Year brings a new decade, and inevitably more of my nonsense.
Jethro Tull look forward to another year of HFoS
2010 marks the official first birthday of Head Full of Snow, February 8th last year being the hallowed date when all this started with a wee profile of lost psychedelic popsters and brief Beatles’ protégés, Focal Point.
To celebrate this momentous occasion we’ll be doing absolutely nothing. Should you wish to wear a sparkly hat or release a party-popper into the wild on said date, you’re more than welcome.
Which brings me to the intentions for Head Full of Snow into 2010.
If you read the Prog Rock Xmas Selection Pack, then you already know the drill. If not, then to recap, it’s just five psych albums that you could do worse than spend your beer tokens on this Christmas.
It’s not a top 5, or the best of the best, so if you’re looking for a war of words, kindly try elsewhere. It’s just a few Head Full of Snow psychedelic rock faves to keep the cockles warm as the real snow falls.
Kaleidoscope – Tangerine Dream
The 1967 debut album from the UK (and vastly superior) Kaleidoscope, who would later go on to become Fairfield Parlour. With songs such as ‘The Murder of Lewis Tollani’, the sinister ‘(Further Reflections) In the Room of Percussion‘, the toytown psych of ‘Mr. Small, The Watch Repairer Man’, and the Narnia-like joy of ‘Sky Children’, Tangerine Dream is psychedelic gold. A folky feel prevails throughout, and this largely neglected example of late 60’s psychedelia is an eerie masterpiece.
The BBC reports that rare footage of a Syd Barrett-led Pink Floyd, playing on Top of the Pops, has been unearthed and will be shown for the first the time in 42 years.
Image courtesy Capitol/EMI Archive
The damaged film stock, on 1 inch, reel to reel tape, was discovered in a private collection and has been restored to a state where it can once again be viewed.
Since the dawn of time debate has raged as to the answer to that eternal question. Which is better? Pre or post-Dark Side of the Moon Pink Floyd?
Many have attempted to find the answer only to fall by the wayside, their search for the truth let down by ill-preparation. Head Full of Snow will do no such thing. Instead we will weigh up the pros and cons of each era with the pivotal album remaining off-limits (for the record, a decent enough album but, in my opinion, one that’s outrageously overrated). This way there should be no fear of falling on our collective swords, long before the battle has been won. Read more…
In the world of cinema, remakes are usually dismissed as a sign of the lack of creativity within the film industry moneymaking machine. The same can’t be said for music. If an artist covers another’s tune it’s called a tribute, and, dependant upon the song and diversity of the arrangement or “reinterpretation”, sometimes hailed as a “work of genius”.
So what if you’re a record label and all you do is release modern re-recordings of psychedelic, prog rock and acid-folk tunes from the late 60s and 70s? Well Fruits de Mer Records is one such label (possibly the only such label), and like the bumblebee with its disproportionate bodyweight to wingspan ratio, it shouldn’t work, but somehow does.
Man, the rock group that spilled forth from South Wales in the late sixties and released a raft of albums throughout the seventies, were never ones to accept the pigeonhole gracefully. After all, what were they? Could Man be called psychedelic rock, progressive rock, country-rock or good old-fashioned pub rock?
Well they took elements of all these disciplines and brewed their own concoction, which if a category must be applied, would fall somewhere within the progressive-country-blues bracket… probably. MAN, their eponymously titled third album from 1971 is a suitable example of this eclectic clash of styles, as it veers from one to the next over the course of five songs.
To bring Head Full of Snow’s Procol Harum Week to a close, we list our five favourite tunes from the erudite songsmiths of psychedelic and progressive rock grandiose.
Actually, following a ruddy great trawl through what’s on offer, this may be retitled our “five favourite Procol Harum tunes available on YouTube.” They’re all absolute stonkers, nonetheless. ‘A Salty Dog‘, ‘Grand Hotel‘ and ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’ are absent from this list as they were posted earlier this week.
So with no further nonsense, let’s get stuck in. Read more…
With packaging as lush as and three times more lickable than a Gary Brooker orchestral arrangement, Salvo release the Creme de Menthe of their Procol Harum 40th Anniversary reissues, the four disc compendium, All This and More.
All this and more, indeed. What we have here is three CDs spanning the lengthy career of Southend-on-Sea’s finest, a DVD brimming with live performances, and a 70-page booklet distended with photographs, song facts and the story so far regarding the perennial psychedelic/progressive/symphonic rock act.
For their sixth album, Procol Harum departed the studio and took to the stage of the Northern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium in Edmonton, Canada, with a full symphony orchestra as their backing band and a 24-voice choir providing vocal support.
Released in 1972, Procol Harum Live in Concert with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra (to give it its full, roll off the tongue title) was the result and it finds the band in their natural live habitat, their most ambitious songs up until that time heard in all their symphonic rock glory.
Head Full of Snow’s 100th post coincides with the launch of Procol Harum Week. It’s almost as though I planned it that way. And where else would one kick off a Procol Harum Week than at the moment in time where it all began? The debut single that has gone on to be named the UK’s “most played record ever”.
Whether you love or hate it, there’s no denying that if at some point over the last 42 years you’ve heard a bit of music, there’s more chance of it being ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’ than anything else.
Though not their best song, it managed to capture a moment in the summer of 1967 when, if you were fortunate enough not to have to work for a living and bought into the whole flower power freedom movement, anything seemed possible. The fact it caught on with the mainstream too, quickly elevated AWSoP to the legendary stature it enjoys today.
Jethro Tull look forward to another year of HFoS
Kaleidoscope – Tangerine Dream
Image courtesy Capitol/EMI Archive
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