syngts
New Member
Ladies and gentlemen, it's an honor to put this thing in motion.
And for the first N+G Listening Club record we'll put time in motion as well as we go back to 1967.
It's an year in which time itself is very shifty -- there's lots of Eddies in the space-time continuum.
The Beatles have just projected the psychedelic-fueled hippie era into the absolute mainstream with the release of Sgt. Pepper, practically breathing the same air for several months as Syd Barret and co. down at Abbey Road Studios in London. 3 months later, they put out their deliciously-psychedelic debut, Piper at the Gates of Dawn. It's not a hot take to say this period was a peak of human artistic creativity.
The artist behind our record however was tasting a different kind of air; he was actually on the doorstep of the place this whole movement called Home. Across the pond and across the continent, not only a creative but also a climatic hotbed was giving life to Los Angeles. You had icons like The Doors, Jefferson Airplane and Love, all creating some of their best works; Frank Sinatra was just awarded 5 Grammies in a local ceremony, and Sony & Cher were filming their musical thriller comedy Good Times. But while they were busy with that nonsense, one of their session players, a very talented pianist/guitarist, took advantage of the free studio time the duo's work thankfully created to lay down a more natural and grounded concept...only not in the way you might think.
Inspired by Haitian Voodoo books his sister thought fitting to serve as gifts, Mac Rebennack managed to conjure to life one the few soundscapes truly worthy of the psychedelic title. For while many other works claiming this label could be seen as coming from an escapist drug affair of a western society completely forsaken by any sort of spiritual connection with the land and world it inhabited, this was supposed to be different. Think more Cortes' & Ramahlo's Paebiru than Are You Experienced. More Jim Morrison's Oedipus relentlessly chasing down his father on The End than Grace Slick's Alice tripping down the hole on White Rabbit. And for its daringness, it didn't go unnoticed -- ripples of it carry all the way to Bone Machine era Tom Waits (supposedly, he was so enchanted by the album he drafted Mac's producer Harold Battiste to work on his last two Asylum albums -- just before he as well went off the beaten path with Swordfishtrombones).
This is to be listened at night. Put your kids to sleep. Feed the dogs and let them outside. Cats will probably love it.
It is a smoky affair, instruments and voices permeating from all possible angles as if from a swampy ceremonial gathering just outside the planes of this realm, sometimes far away, sometimes really close, at all times unreachable. So put this on. Light something up -- a candle at the least. And let Mac Rebennack's words take you away:
And for the first N+G Listening Club record we'll put time in motion as well as we go back to 1967.
It's an year in which time itself is very shifty -- there's lots of Eddies in the space-time continuum.
The Beatles have just projected the psychedelic-fueled hippie era into the absolute mainstream with the release of Sgt. Pepper, practically breathing the same air for several months as Syd Barret and co. down at Abbey Road Studios in London. 3 months later, they put out their deliciously-psychedelic debut, Piper at the Gates of Dawn. It's not a hot take to say this period was a peak of human artistic creativity.
The artist behind our record however was tasting a different kind of air; he was actually on the doorstep of the place this whole movement called Home. Across the pond and across the continent, not only a creative but also a climatic hotbed was giving life to Los Angeles. You had icons like The Doors, Jefferson Airplane and Love, all creating some of their best works; Frank Sinatra was just awarded 5 Grammies in a local ceremony, and Sony & Cher were filming their musical thriller comedy Good Times. But while they were busy with that nonsense, one of their session players, a very talented pianist/guitarist, took advantage of the free studio time the duo's work thankfully created to lay down a more natural and grounded concept...only not in the way you might think.
Inspired by Haitian Voodoo books his sister thought fitting to serve as gifts, Mac Rebennack managed to conjure to life one the few soundscapes truly worthy of the psychedelic title. For while many other works claiming this label could be seen as coming from an escapist drug affair of a western society completely forsaken by any sort of spiritual connection with the land and world it inhabited, this was supposed to be different. Think more Cortes' & Ramahlo's Paebiru than Are You Experienced. More Jim Morrison's Oedipus relentlessly chasing down his father on The End than Grace Slick's Alice tripping down the hole on White Rabbit. And for its daringness, it didn't go unnoticed -- ripples of it carry all the way to Bone Machine era Tom Waits (supposedly, he was so enchanted by the album he drafted Mac's producer Harold Battiste to work on his last two Asylum albums -- just before he as well went off the beaten path with Swordfishtrombones).
This is to be listened at night. Put your kids to sleep. Feed the dogs and let them outside. Cats will probably love it.
It is a smoky affair, instruments and voices permeating from all possible angles as if from a swampy ceremonial gathering just outside the planes of this realm, sometimes far away, sometimes really close, at all times unreachable. So put this on. Light something up -- a candle at the least. And let Mac Rebennack's words take you away:
“To you whom I may communicate with shortly through the smoke of Deaux-Deaux the rattlesnake whose forked tongue hisses pig Latin in silk and satin da-zaw-ig-day, may the gilded splinters of Auntie Andre spew forth in your path to light and guide your way through the bayous of life.”
– Dr John
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