Fifty Foot Hose - Cauldron (1968)

Holy shit. How is this album even from 1968? This tragically overlooked psych rock release offers an awesome mix of acid soaked pop songs on some tracks and dark, angular freak outs on others. Songs like "Red the Sign Post" or "If Not This Time" sound to me as if they'd fit in better in 1978 than 1968. This is a truly amazing album and I highly recommend it if you enjoy good music.

My brain imploded down to cinders
Growing new senses to feel
Seeing, hearing all that is real
If not this time
Maybe never

Various Artists - Psychedelic Disaster Whirl (1986)

Really great comp of late 60's psych rock, really has a lot more grittiness than a lot of others. As the title suggests there's no flower power, no sunshine pop, no groovy jams, just raw psychedelic sounds of the sixties. Definitely worth a listen if you're interested in psychedelic rock.

Like a big ol' flashing sign now
I'm gonna infiltrate your pretty little mind now

Acid Mothers Temple & the Melting Paraiso U.F.O.- "La Novia" (2000)

Acid Mothers Temple & the Melting Paraiso U.F.O. are an extremely large "spirit collective" from Japan who stand as monoliths in the current experimental rock scene as one of the most prolific and varied bands around, going from ephemeral noise rock blasts to strung-out psychedelic droning.

Mercury Rev - Yerself Is Steam (1991)

Mercury Rev, hailing from New York, USA, originally formed to soundtrack their experimental films, but at the insistence of experimental filmmaker and composer Tony Conrad (who's work with Faust will definitely see the spotlight sometime on this blog), released this, their debut album. Their follow up, "Boces" was another magnificent album, following the wild psychedelic noise rock blue print thrown down by "Yerself is Steam", but sadly for fans, after singer David Baker left the group, they became far more tame and timid, although they did receive. But "Yerself is Steam" and "Boces" still stand out amongst the teeming masses of bands that populate the Underground Rock scene of the early 90s as two albums that are so unique and sound fresh and bizarre even by todays standards.

Gomorrha - I Turned to See Whose Voice It Was (1972)

Gomorrha were a relatively short-lived German band associated with the Krautrock movement operative in the early 1970s. In 1972, they released their swan song "I Turned to See Whose Voice It Was", considered by many to be their finest album. This album is a masterful blend of more blues-based psychedelic rock and progressive rock to create an extremely lively sounding brand of Krautrock dubbed "Hard Krautrock" by many germanophiles. Personally, this is one of the overlooked gems of the Krautrock movement, and one that definitely earns it's place on this blog

Ghost - Tune In, Turn On, Free Tibet (1999)

Ghost is an interesting band, and one I'm surprised that more people don't know about it - guitarist Michio Kurihara has even worked extensively with fellow Japanese rockers Boris, yet the band still remains relatively obscure. They broke up shortly after the release of at the end of the 20th century, only to reform later and release another album in 2004. Still, Tune In, Turn On, Free Tibet remains a testament to this interesting and unconventional group The first part of the album stays in relatively traditional Psych Folk territory - normal for Ghost at least - although the idea of Tibet and Buddhism flows throughout - for the first 30 or so minutes, this is a very serene album. Opener "We Insist" obviously pays homage to the central theme of the album by incorporating certain Tibetan instruments, and in fact, the first part of the album features Masaki Batoh's very hushed vocals over tenderly played acoustic guitars - at times, Batoh's singing is almost whisper quiet, and at other points, it sounds more like he's speaking than singing - it's beautifully tranquil, almost quiescent at times. Sometimes the pace and the intensity quickens - The vocal harmonies on "Comin' Home" for example - but for the most part, the first part of the album is tranquil and serene psych folk made up of a few easily digestible songs. The relatively noisier and more psychedelic "Change the World" gives a glimpse of what's to coming, building into a psychedelic guitar freak-out before fading back into mellow, guitar-centric psych folk before lapsing back into noisy, loopwheeling psych rock

The second part is a completely different monster - the 30 minute title track "Tune In, Turn On, Free Tibet " is the real centerpiece of the album - the song starts off as extremely spacey and serene - it retains the poignant beauty of the rest of the album - but it's a shifting, snaking song - it shifts from thunderous tribal-esque percussion to oscillating bleeps and bloops, to crazy psychedelic guitar freak-outs. It's an immense piece, and while I prefer the soothing, mellow folk-oriented first part of the album, it's the second half that really makes it a unique record and shows off the prowess of Ghost as a band, cementing them as powerhouses within Japan's modern Psych scene.

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