THREE EYED MEN ARE NOT COMPLAININ'...

Regular readers will be aware that, regardless of whatever else I’ve been into at one time or another, I’ve always maintained an interest in exploring the myriad mysteries of psychedelic music, in the widest possible sense of the term.

And, as the nights draw in, the shadows climb the walls by mid-afternoon and the marvels of the internet allow me previously undreamed of access to information on, downloads of, and even affordable legit sources for, all manner of esoteric recordings both hallowed and unheralded, you’d better believe that PSYCHE has been back on the menu in a big way recently.

So, here is the first volume of what will perhaps be an irregular series of compilations charting some of the high points of my ear-explorations, featuring some stuff I’ve only just discovered mixed alongside tracks I’ve been digging for years.

Some of the artists and tracks represented will probably be familiar to psyche-fiends, others hopefully less so. I was tempted to use this space to run down some explanatory notes on these songs, but on balance I think it’s probably more appropriate to keep things mysterious. And, should you wish to find out more about any of the artists represented, a fascinating session of google-aided research is surely guaranteed. I’ve also tended to avoid the inclusion of any lengthy drone tracks or side-long freakouts, simply in order to be able to represent a wider variety of music within 80 minutes (yeah, you can put this fucker on a CD), whilst still providing some (what I hope will be) tantilizing tasters of pure sound and cosmic jazz in amongst more song-based material.

One of the best things about making psychedelic comps is the unexpected themes and synchronicities that can arise from your seemingly random track choices as you listen back after a few glasses of wine, providing the mix with it’s own unique atmosphere… if that doesn’t sound too pretentious.

For instance, whilst they’re not featured directly, the strange legacy of Roky Erickson, Tommy Hall and the other 13th Floor Elevators hangs heavy over this comp. Obviously I took the title from one of the final verses of their immortal ‘Slip Inside This House’ (“two-eyed men with mystery training / finally feel the power of thule”), and in addition to Oneida’s punk rock resurrection of that particular reality-defying classic (although they leave out the lyrics I’ve just quoted, maybe just through exhaustion), the spirit of Texas’s weirder underbelly lives on via the unique observations of Roky collaborator and electric autoharp entrepreneur Billy Miller, with his band Cold Sun, and also in the strangely similar latter-day psyche-drift of Houston’s own Christina Carter.

Journeying outward from there, it appears that, despite contributions from as far afield as Peru and New Zealand, the majority of tracks here are American, and, taken together, they could almost be seen to represent some kinda journey through a woozy, hallucinogenic alternate USA… a USA you could perhaps travel via the ‘underground railroad’ that a young Fred Cole seems so desperate to board in The Lollipop Shoppe’s song…? MYSTERY TRAIN(ing)!

So - slightly to the East of the Lone Star State, The Surrealistic Pillow give us a wonderfully naive glimpse of that strange moment when Jefferson Airplane and Doors records started to hit Louisiana’s high schools, whilst Tommy Jay keeps things in the confederacy with his account of the Battle of Fredericksburg, and teenage genius and WCPAEB alumnus Michael Lloyd gives us a Hollywood superbrat’s skewed take on the conquest of the West, via his ‘68 studio project The Smoke. Up the coast a little in ‘Frisco, the recording that opens proceedings gives us a rare early ’66 account of psychedelia’s ground zero. Alice C. provides the New York connection (via Bombay, the centre of the universe, and the eternity of her own soul), and, hey, even the UK’s Stone Angel chime in to take us on a mist-shrouded cliff walk through H.P. Lovecraft’s Other New England. Then all that’s left is for Philadelphia’s Fursaxa to issue her ultimatum to the city of angels, and we fade out on the spectre of Gary Higgins, trawling the back roads of Litchfield County, CT for his lost love as the cops – and reality - close in….

And imagine, some people say I overthink these things.

Enjoy.

Tracklist:

1. The Merry Pranksters, Grateful Dead & friends - acid test recording
2. The Smoke [U.S.] - Cowboys & Indians
3. Oneida - Slip Inside This House
4. Greg Ashley - Legs Coca Cola
5. Cold Sun - South Texas
6. Alice Coltrane - The Sun
7. Vibracathedral Orchestra - He Play All Day
8. El Polen - Mi Cueva
9. Tommy Jay - I Was There
10. Christina Carter - Blind Eye
11. The Left Handed Marriage - Limousine
12. Anthony Davis - Section 2 (Sustained Tones)
13. The Lollipop Shoppe - Underground Railroad
14. The Surrealistic Pillow - I Like Girls
15. Tall Dwarfs - Lurlene Bayliss
16. Stone Angel - The Bells of Dunwich
17. Fursaxa - Surrender, LA
18. Gary Higgins - Looking For June

Download:

Here.

(95mb .zip file)

Labels: 1960s, mixtapes, Psychedelia