This is sweet

Pärson Sound (1968)

Inspired by minimalist composer Terry Riley, Pärson Sound was a 10-piece Swedish band who experimented with droning, repetitive jams. Their music is exceptionally dense, with huge guitar sound, bass, organ, flute, piano, saxophone, sparse vocals and drums by three different members. They also made use of tape manipulation, sometimes during live performances letting a tape pass two tape recorders, one tape recording and the other playing back with distortion, creating progressively layered noises and tones. Pärson Sound is not for those lacking patience for extended jamming, with two songs clocking in over 20 minutes—"Skrubba" nearly approaches half an hour—and no song under five minutes, besides the short intro. Although largely chaotic, repetitive and loud, Pärson Sound was also very capable of creating melodic pastorales. This becomes evident towards the end of "10 Minutes," as noisy jamming gradually segues—seemingly through the use of tape manipulation—into a pleasant baseline with airy vocals and nice chord changes. This lighter side of the band doesn't resurface again until the final two tracks of the album. The understated "On How to Live" consists of strummed acoustic guitar, flute and singing birds, while "Blaslaten" layers beautiful wind instruments and saxophone. One highlight of the album is the menacingly sparse "A Glimpse Inside The Glyptotec -66," which also makes use of tape manipulation. Ambient sounds dominate the track, but towards the end, haunting, breathy vocals close the song out on an eerie note. Pärson Sound would eventually change their name to International Harvester, releasing two albums, Sov Gott Rose-Marie—named for a song also included on Pärson Sound—in 1968 and Hemat in 1969. The more accessible and famous Träd, Gräs och Stenar would later form from the remaining members of International Harvester.

"10 Minutes"


Download Pärson Sound

Amon Düül II - Yeti (1970)

Even though my familiarity with krautrock is vague at best, that won't stop me from proclaiming this to be one of the most innovative and genre-defining albums of the movement. Due to more ambitious musical aspirations, Amon Düül II grew out of Amon Düül, which was a radical, political and artistic commune founded in Munich. Yeti is their second album, which was originally released as a double album consisting of composed studio recordings on one record and improvisations on the other. The opening track "Soap Box Rock" sets the tone, first sounding like some standard garage rock but quickly transforming into dark, progressive rock with both far-out and melodic instrumental passages. The first half continues with some interesting instrumental pieces, the closest thing to typical rock music in "Archangels Thunderbird," and the intense "Eye-Shaking King." The second half improvisations are impressively tight, setting the standard for experimental music to come. Much of the improvisations—specifically "Sandoz in the Rain"—seem extremely influential to the modern day Japanese experimental commune,
Acid Mothers Temple. Male and female vocals are featured throughout the album, both of which are satisfyingly peculiar and distinct. Amon Düül II also make use of strings, which add another level of interest to their complex sounds. This release features two bonus tracks, "Rattlesnakeplumcake" and "Between the Eyes," but unfortunately the song "Pale Gallery" is missing three minutes of the original song. I guess it was cut short on most CD releases to keep it to one disc. Apparently the Captain Trips release features the full five minute version.

Fun fact: Apparently the chick on the cover brandishing that scythe was one of their groupies.

I just couldn't narrow it down to one song.


Check out this mind-altering performance of "Eye-Shaking King."



Download Yeti

The Laughing Soup Dish - We Are the Dish (1987) & "Teenage Lima Bean" single (1985)

As far as I know, this is the quintessential lo-fi psychedelic band of the 80s. With an abundance of catchy hooks, ridiculous psychedelic lead guitar, way far-out overdubs, self-consciously trippy lyrics, and a DIY garage rock grittiness, never has poorly recorded neo-psychedelia sounded so good. The Laughing Soup Dish formed in West Long Branch, NJ in 1981 as a three-piece headed by guitarist and vocalist, Wayne Larsen. The band was plagued with frequent inner turmoil, completing their debut album We Are the Dish after undergoing three lineup changes. The album was recorded on a four track reel to reel, which was then layered with two more tracks of sound effects. From 1987 to 1989, LSD (get the name now?) toured, which included shows in New York City with lights by Captain Wizzo, known for his lighting of Big Brother and the Holding Company shows and other San Francisco groups from the original psychedelic era. In 1989, they recorded their second album Overthrow the Underground, (if anyone can hook this up, please let me know!) which proceeded with even more internal conflict. The Laughing Soup Dish called it quits in 1992. This download contains We Are the Dish as well as the "Teenage Lima Bean" single, which includes the B-side "Rainy Day Sponge." Both of these tracks are on point and as good, if not better than the best tracks from We Are the Dish.

Listen to "Seven Seas" and "Teenage Lima Bean"


Watch the Laughing Soup Dish mime "Acidland" and make fun of Uncle Floyd's dumb hair (at 9:20) on the Uncle Floyd Show circa 1987:


The Laughing Soup Dish's myspace page

Download We Are the Dish & "Teenage Lima Bean" single

Nirvana- The Story of Simon Simopath (1967)

Generally speaking, I don't have a ton of patience for concept albums. I've found that, more often than not, they're overly self-indulgent, meandering messes. Either that or the concept gets totally lost on me. Or both. Likewise, I have a personal aversion to the term "twee", partly because it's gotten so worn-out but mostly because I don't like the way it sounds. Anyway, here's a twee concept album.

Nirvana was formed in 1967 by Patrick Campbell-Lyons and Alex Spyropoulos who hail from Ireland and Greece respectively. Originally a six-piece, the band was eventually pared down to the two principal members along with assists from various session musicians. The Story of Simon Simopath was their first LP. The aforementioned concept of the album has to do with Simon Simopath wanting to fly and so he tries to get various things to give him their wings (angels, airplanes, etc.) and he ends up in outer space. Oh yeah, also love. Anyway, who really cares. The point is this album is pretty great from start to finish. Catchy tunes, solid melodies, lush instrumentation, and quasi-baroque arrangements more than make up for the occasionally quaint lyrical content. I'm not going to go into detail about each song or anything, the album's less than 25 minutes long, you should just listen to it.

Tracklist:
1. Wings of Love
2. Lonely Boy
3. We Can Help You
4. Satellite Jockey
5. In the Courtyard of the Stars
6. You're Just the One
7. Pentecost Hotel
8. I Never Found a Love Like This
9. Take This Hand
10. 1999


Listen to "Pentecost Hotel"




Also, here's a video.




Download The Story of Simon Simopath

Troyka (1970)

Troyka is a band which justifies our perilous questing across used record stores and spooky abandoned blogs. Although given a major label release (via Atlantic's then new Cotillion branch) Troyka's self-titled 1970 album remains obscure to say the least. Which is pity, because it's truly magnificent. Consisting of Mike Richards (percussion & lead vocals), Robert Edwards (guitar & mandolin) and Ron "Rumor" Lukawietsky (bass) and hailing from Edmonton, Alberta, these fine Canadian gents crafted this album out of a series of jam sessions overseen by Velvet Underground producer Shel Kagan.

This kind of record building can easily result in a schizophrenic end product, each song differing too greatly to give any semblance of cohesion. Though each song is different, ranging from growling biker stomp to lysergic pastorale, fortune favored the bold and the album holds together as a single solid entity. Singer Mike Richards has a "unique" voice but even if you don't warm to him, you'll still find plenty to enjoy, over half the tracks are instrumental.

This is from the 2000 CD reissue put out by Black Rose Records, and there's a bit of noticeable static and hiss in some of the silent sections, perhaps indicating a remastering from vinyl. But don't let that stop you! This is a lost classic.

1. Introduction
2. Natural
3. Early Morning
4. Life's OK
5. Burning of the Witch
6. Rub-A-Dub-Dub Troyka in a Tub
7. Troyka Lament
8. Troyka Solo
9. Rolling Down The Back Road
10. Berry Picking
11. Dear Margaret
12. Go East Young Man Beautiful Pink Eyes
13. Troyka Finale

Listen to Early Morning:


Troyka (1970) mp3 320 kbps

Crocheted Doughnut Ring/Doughnut Ring Singles

Thanks again to the It's Psych Forum, I give you a collection of singles from a band known as the Crocheted Doughnut Ring and apparently just the Doughnut Ring at some other point. I'm having trouble finding much information on them, so drop a comment if you can fill me in. A range of sounds can be heard throughout these eight tracks, including some perfectly crafted psych-pop, minimal-far-out-sound-
collage-type-shit, good old rock 'n' roll, a tune with some hispanic flavor and a "cool island song" (to melt your icy heart). The collection starts off with "Havana Anna" which is the cool island song I speak of. It's a catchy tune that has yet to grow old for me... definitely one of my favorites. Another stand out song is the ballad "Maxine's Parlour," although the highlight of the collection is the Crocheted Doughnut Ring's last two tracks. "Nice" is the sound collage, which is a pretty shocking listen considering it was created by a late 60s band with obvious ambitions to write pop songs. Although I'm pretty unfamiliar with musique concrète, I suspect it was heavily influenced by it as well as early electronic music. Modern lo-fi indie bands that get off on occasional experimental sound wish they could make this shit. Just when you think this band couldn't get any sweeter, "Nice" segues into "Two Little Ladies (Azalea & Rhododendron)." Packed with catchy melodies, tinkering harpsichord, swirling psychedelic effects, and frequent shifts in tempo, "Two Little Ladies (Azalea & Rhododendron)" epitomizes 60s psych-pop. I find the song very reminiscent of the Idle Race's debut album Birthday Party, which is no small compliment. The two Doughnut Ring tracks don't excite me quite as much, but I still get dibs on sampling the first eight seconds of "Dance Around Julie." In case you were wondering, that's not the real artwork.

Update: Check the comments of this post for some detailed information about the Crocheted Doughnut Ring/Dougnut Ring.