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Tuesday, December 20, 2022

The Ghost - When You´re Dead For One Second (Acid-Folkrock UK 1970, A Stunning Album)



Size: 91.5 MB
Bitrate: 256
mp3
Ripped By: ChrisGoesRock
Artwork Included

Ghost formed in Birmingham in the late sixties. They started out playing a heavish sort of blues-rock before they met up with singer Shirley Kent who'd already recorded two tracks on a charity EP, The Master Singers And Shirley Kent Sing For Charec 67 (Keele University 103) in 1966. Paul Eastment had earlier played in Velvett Fogg. 

They recorded their album at the end of 1969, spawning their first 45 at the end of the year. When You're Dead was a strong song with a clear US West Coast influence. It was hardly Chart material, though, so predictably sales were poor. The album came out in January 1970. There's a clear contrast between the folk pieces that Shirley Kent sings on like Hearts And Flowers and Time Is My Enemy, which in style recall Sandy Denny's heyday in Fairport Convention, and the blues-rock numbers contributed by the rest of the band, of which For One Second sounds the strongest. Also worth checking out is the powerful Too Late To Cry. The album has now become a major collector's item, partly on account of its rarity but also on account of the breadth of its appeal to fans of both blues-rock and folk. 

Reissue Back Cover

The band returned to the studio in Spring 1970 to record I've Got To Get To Know You. Another track from their album, For One Second, was put on the flip, but when the 45 failed to sell the band slowly began to fall apart. Shirley Kent left to pursue a solo career and eventually released an album in 1975, Fresh Out, under the pseudonym Virginia Tree. I haven't heard it but it's reputedly folkier than Ghost's output and featured former band members Paul Eastment and Terry Guy on three of the tracks. After Kent's departure, the remaining band members soldiered on for a while using the name Resurrection but this later incarnation of the band didn't make it onto vinyl. 

THE GHOST briefly appeared like a spectral vision in Birmingham, England in the late-1960's. Their hauntingly-titled one and only album "When You're Dead - One Second" rose from the grave in 1970 before the band just as quickly disappeared in a wisp of hazy smoke like a phantom apparition. The spooky album cover showed a ghostly translucent image of the five-piece band gathered around a large tombstone, headed by a Celtic Cross.

Right from the first few opening bars of "When You're Dead", you can tell we're going to be in for a weird and wonderful wild psychedelic ride here. This acid-drenched music is very reminiscent of the American band H.P. Lovecraft. In fact, The Ghost have such a strong resemblance to the American West Coast sixties sound that it's hard to believe they could be from the gloomy backstreets of Birmingham in England. This "phantasmic" bunch of Brummies really know how to Rock! 


The Ghost are listed as Prog Folk on ProgArchives, but make no mistake, this opening number sounds like a wild Psychedelic Rock trip back in time to the flower-power freeway of love in San Francisco in the swinging sixties. In complete contrast, the second song "Hearts and Flowers" is a gorgeous Folk Pop refrain that could quite easily have been recorded by Peter, Paul & Mary or The Seekers. It's a truly beautiful melody floating along on a gentle wave of gorgeous guitar strings and uplifting harmonies. 

This stunning song - featuring Shirley Kent on lead vocals - is a real gem that shines like a sparkling diamond and would have had tremendous hit potential if it had ever been released as a single. We're back on the magic bus again for "In Heaven", and if you love the sound of H.P. Lovecraft, then you'll be "In Heaven" too when you hear this absolutely fabulous psychedelic sixties song. It's groovy, baby! There's a return to gentler Folk Rock territory for "Time is My Enemy", a poignant song about the passing of the years which conjures up fond memories of the classic years of Sandy Denny and Fairport Convention, although this is more of an unconventional slice of Psych-Folk. 

The Ghost - Portugal Picture Sleeve Single 1970

Shirley Kent sounds in magnificent voice on this hauntingly- beautiful song. It's a compelling blend of Sandy Denny's "Fotheringay" and "Who Knows Where the Time Goes", given a liberal psychedelic sprinkling of glowing rainbow colours. This is turning out to be a very good album indeed! Continuing with the intoxicating blend of storming Hard Rock songs and gentle Folk Rock refrains comes "Too Late To Cry", a rousing rip-roaring rocker, featuring an extended psychedelic wah-wah guitar trip back to the Streets of San Francisco in the hippy sixties, or the wild and untamed streets of Chicago in the case of H.P. Lovecraft.

The Ghost - Promo Single UK 1970

We're onto Side Two now "For One Second", which opens as a gently laid-back country-tinged melody, but wait one second because there's a surprise in store when the song metamorphosizes from a caterpillar into a bright and beautiful psychedelic butterfly for the storming crescendo of acid-soaked guitar reverb in the fabulous finale. And now we come to The Ghost's magnificent magnum opus, "Night of the Warlock", a spirited Demons and Wizards song that barrels along at pell-mell speed, taking the listener on a crazy helter-skelter ride in a headlong rush towards psychedelic nirvana. 

This is like a maniacal harum scarum version of "Season of the Witch", wound up to 99 and given an energetic burst of adrenaline and raw power. We're off to meet the "Indian Maid" next, so you can expect to hear some exotic far-eastern vibes from the Indian sub-continent, although the song is still firmly rooted in western psychedelia. Either way, it's another great song wherever you are in the world. It's time now to mount the battlements for "My Castle Has Fallen", a storming medieval ballista firing a relentless percussive artillery barrage of pummelling Psychedelic Rock! 

There's no let-up in the incredible pace either because "The Storm" is on the way, a thunder and lightning display of sonic energy to rattle the windows and light up the sky. It's not all Crash! Bang! Wallop! though, because there's a return to gentler climes for "Me and My Loved Ones", a bright rainbow sunburst of groovy psychedelic colours to close the album in magnificent style. Wait a minute though, we're not quite through yet, because there's the groovy sixties number "I've Got To Get To Know You" added as a bonus track.

The Ghost has risen from the grave of the psychedelic sixties era and reappeared as an awesome apparition fifty years later on ProgArchives. "When You're Dead - One Second" is an album full of haunting Folk refrains and spirited psychedelic acid trips. All in all, it's a heavenly album full of devilishly good songs.

- Terry Guy / organ, piano
- Shirley Kent / acoustic guitar, tambourine, lead vocals
- Paul Eastment / lead guitar, lead vocals
- Daniel MacGuire / bass
- Charlie Grima / drums, percussion

01. When You’re Dead (4:25)
02. Hearts And Flowers (2:54)
03. In Heaven (3:21)
04. Time Is My Enemy (4:06)
05. Too Late To Cry (5:04)
06. For One Second (5:25)
07. Night Of The Warlock (4:22)
08. Indian Maid (4:21)
09. My Castle Has Fallen (2:57)
10. The Storm (3:36)
11. Me And My Loved Ones (4:09)
12. I’ve Got To Get To Know You (4:02)

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Neptunian Maximalism - M4 - (Belgium Kraut & Psychedelic Meditation 2018)



Size: 191 MB
Bit Rate: 320
mp3
Ripped by: ChrisGoesRock
Some Artwork Included

NEPTUNIAN MAXIMALISM, a.k.a. NNMM is a community of “cultural engineers” (*Genesis P-Orridge) using sounds, with a variable line-up. This project was initiated by Guillaume Cazalet (CZLT) and the veteran saxophonist player Jean-Jacques Duerinckx (Ze Zorgs) in Brussels (2018), during a residency with and two drummers Sebastien Schmit (K-Branding) and Pierre Arese (AKSU). 


The result was a bifacial entity, sometimes calling for a primitive voodoo trance with percussive intonations, dominated by rhythm and a savage movement, sometimes towards a psychedelic meditation with prophetic and spiritual accents resting on an amplified drone music where time is explored, harmony, the power of the tonic and its iridescent harmonics, durability, weight, ruin.


From this residency were born a trilogy to come, dedicated to the Sun, the Moon and the Earth and a first album, The Conference Of The Stars, released on the label Homo Sensibilis Records, mixing drone metal and spiritual free jazz, animated by a cosmic and psychedelic energy.


In 2019, Reshma Goolamy (bass), Romain Martini (guitar), Didié Nietzche (48 Cameras, Radio Prague), Joaquin Bermudez (Phoenician Drive) and Alice Thiel (Thot) joined the project that takes the form of an “Opera Drone”. In 2020, Lukas Bouchenot & Stephane Fedele join their forces on drums and turns the music into an heavy psych experience.


By exploring the evolution of the human species, particularly through the use of speculative texts in Homo-sapiens prototypal language (*Pierre Lanchantin), they question the future of the living on earth. They try to create a sense of acceptance of the end of the "Anthropocene" era through a musical and soteriological experience.

° Sebastien Schmit : Drums, percs.
° Pierre Arese : Drums, percs.
° Jean Jacques Duerinckx : Amplified sax baryton.
° Guillaume Cazalet (CZLT) : Amplified bass and guitar, vocals.

01. Dan Ayido Hwedo/ Ngowekara  29:46
02. Daiitoku-Myōō no ŌDAIKO 大威徳明王 鼓童 : L'Impact De Théia durant l’Éon Hadéen  08:49

Bonus Track
03. Sonuf Vaoresajl  39:48 

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Temple Fang - Live at Merleyn (Psychelic Rock 2020)


Size: 96.3 MB
Bitrate: 320
mp3
Ripped by: ChrisGoesRock
Artwork Included

Temple Fang is a jam band from Amsterdam, the Netherlands.


What’s good comes fast. Take Temple Fang, for example. The group could already be admired at Roadburn, Paaspop, Fortarock, Into The Void, Desertfest, Sonic Whip and recently at Sniester in The Hague. In no-time the band attracted a large number of real life followers. 


And rightly so, because both on record and live this bearded foursome enchants and hypnotizes fans of Kyuss, The Grateful Dead and Motorpsycho. How? With long drawn-out proggy space rock songs that make long hair flutter and pants bulge. Enter the spaceship named Temple Fang for an eternal acid rock trip through universe. Safe travels.


After Death Alley ended Vocalist/Bassist Dennis Duijnhouwer started playing with Jevin de Groot who also had been part of Death Alley for a while, as well as previously Mühr. Dennis knew Ivy van der Veer, a much younger guy, as the son of a musician he knew and heard some promising demo's of him. 


The first time the three of them jammed, after the initial trepidation about having two left handed guitar players in the band, it was clear there was a musical connection. They rehearsed in the Vondelbunker in Amsterdam when other bands were unable to and took the opportunity to play with a new drummer every time to find the right one for them. After a while Ivy pointed them towards the best drummer he knew, Jasper van den Broeke. 


They asked him to play and initially he said no as with two other bands and a family, not to mention Death Alley's reputation, he felt his time was spoken for. But at some point he was persuaded and after the first ham together it was clear this was not on opportunity to miss.


They played their first show, April 2018 in Little Devil, Tilburg, Netherlands. This resulted in a support slot for the two Dutch shows of Coven later that year. 2019 brought a prestigious performance at Roadburn Presents 2019, and then the record label interest intensified.

The band did not feel ready for this pressure however and decided to hold off at that time. But pressure of fans increased and due to the efforts of crew members Awkward Steve and Niek Manders several shows were recorded in secret to form the basis of a record. This did not immediately come to fruition but would later be the basis of the 2022 album Fang Temple. Feeling the inevitability of needing an album at their merc booth they decided to release one show on a self-released album, Live At Merleyn.

The 28th of June they announced their own festival, Right on Mountain, to be held October 9th 2022 in Doornroosje, Nijmegen, Netherlands.

01. Gemini-Silky Servants  20.12
02. Not The Skull  19.46

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Monday, December 19, 2022

Stone Harbour - Emerge (Heavy Psychedelia US 1974)



Size: 96 MB
Bitrate: 256
mp3
Ripped by: ChrisGoesRock
Artwork Included

"‘Emerges’ as in slowly from the primordial sludge of the universe. 'Emerges' like a slow, slouching spectre hauling itself out of the swamps. But then what's a boy to do?

It's 1974, you're young and have a head full of Hawkwind and Roky and the Elevators, old brutalist blues in the Hound Dog Taylor / Fred McDowell backwoods whisky-fucked mode, freakfolk and LSD; you're stuck in Hicksville, USA - that's Youngstown, Ohio to you lot; the music scene sucks; glam's dead or dying slowly; punk a good year of so from even starting to get itself born. Town's too damn small to even muster up a band in. It's just and your buddy and that's it, man.

So you grows your hair and wear satin, wander wide-eyed and tripping across small town railway tracks and hang loose at the weekend in your basement. You gather a bunch if cheapo instruments on the never-never and you start cutting low-fi bedroom demos. Slowly, slowly Stone Harbour emerge.

Stone Harbour were Ric Ballas - electric, acoustic and slide guitars; organ; piano; synthesizers; bass guitar percussion and voice - and Dave McCarty - lead vocals, drums and percussion... and out of nowhere and nothing, at entirely the wrong time, they cut an LP that will blow your head clean off. This is a trip into the true dark heart of psychedelia.


The music? What can I tell you? ‘You'll be a star’ shimmers and aches in the midnight; cymbals wash over you, Dave McCarty's vocals emerge from some subterranean cave and the keyboards flicker, flicker, flash across the periphery of the song; ‘Rock & Roll Puzzle’ is dark, twisted fried garage punk blues brutality in the same mould as 'White Faces' or 'Cold Night for Alligators', pre-empting The Gories and Pussy Galore by a good ten years!!

"Who invented rock & roll? And who invented soul? Was it you or was it me?" Indeed. Songs fade in and out; finger-picking blurs into screaming squeiching synths; guitars melt in the mid-summer heat. ‘Grains of Sand’ frazzles like The Stooges through a fucked-up amp and filtered through a transistor radio with the valves burning out.

‘Thanitos’ is the freak-out ending of ‘Julia’s Dream’ lost in suburban downtown US of A with the taillights cutting on the freeway .. . whilst ‘Summer Magic is Gone’ is the most haunted, haunting song I've heard in many a long strange moon. Shimmers like stars in the 2am fug and haze and bleeds lost and lonely and bruised into the heat-warped dawn. You're still awake though the brain don't work like it used to. Blurred and bleary and exhilarated and stoned the very core of the soul. Best record I've heard all year."


"What's a boy to do? It's 1974, you're young and have a head full of Hawkwind and Roky and the Elevators, and old brutalist blues in the Hound Dog Taylor/Fred McDowell backwoods whisky-fucked mode; you're stuck in Hicksville, USA; the music scene sucks: glam's dead or dying slowly; punk is a good year or so from even starting to get itself born. Town's too damn small to even muster up a band. It's just you and your buddy and that's it, man. So you grow your hair and wear satin, wander wide-eyed and tripping across small-town railway tracks and hang loose at the weekend in your basement. You gather a bunch of cheapo instruments on the never-never and you start cutting low-fi bedroom demos. 

Stone Harbour were Ric Ballas and Dave McCarty, and out of nowhere and nothing, at entirely the wrong time, they cut an LP that will blow your head clean off. This is a trip into the true dark heart of psychedelia! The music? 'You'll Be A Star' shimmers and aches in the midnight; cymbals wash over you, Dave McCarty's vocals emerge from some subterranean cave, as the keyboards flicker, flicker, flash across the periphery of the song; 'Rock & Roll Puzzle' is dark, twisted fried garage punk blues brutality, pre-empting The Gories and Pussy Galore by a good ten years! Songs fade in and out; finger-picking blurs into screaming squelching synths; guitars melt in the mid-summer heat. 'Grains of Sand' frazzles like The Stooges through a fucked-up amp and filtered through a transistor radio with the valves burning out, whilst 'Summer Magic Is Gone' is the most haunted, haunting song in many a long strange moon. 

Shimmers like stars in the 2 a.m. fog and haze, and bleeds lost and lonely and bruised into the heat-warped dawn. You're still awake, although the brain doesn't work like it used to. Blurred and bleary and exhilarated and stoned to the very core of your soul." Booklet includes lyrics and notes; disc has a handful of previously unreleased tracks from 1975 sessions as bonus tracks." 

01. You'll Be a Star - 4.34
02. Rock & Roll Puzzle - 3.16
03. Grains of Sand - 5.14
04. Summer Magic Is Gone - 3.15
05. Stone's Throw - 1.25
06. Thanitos - 1.48
07. Still Like That Rock & Roll - 3.57
08. Ride - 3.27
09. Dying to Love You - 3.24
10. Workin' for the Queen - 3.07
11. Taurus [Bonus] - 4.15
12. Wonderland [Bonus] - 3.58
13. Witch to You [Bonus] - 4.37
14. Battleaxe [Bonus] - 3.17
15. Untitled [Bonus] - 1.00

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Curt Newbury - Half a Month of May Days (Acid-Folk US 1970)



Size: 72.8 MB
Bitrate: 256
mp3
Ripped by: ChrisGoesRock
Artwork Included

Curt Newbury was born and raised in Texas, but while one can hear traces of his Western heritage in his voice, his sole album, 1970s Half a Month of May Days, is an archetypical example of West Coast singer/songwriter-oriented country-rock in its formative stages. Half a Month of May Days features several members of the celebrated psychedelic group Kaleidoscope backing Newbury, and though these sessions lack the sense of trippy adventure that marked that band's best work, Newbury's elliptical wordplay and gently loping melodies mesh nicely with the chiming guitars, fiddles, and organ lines of the studio band, and they turn these tunes into something truly memorable. 

Newbury's songs sometimes sound poetic in all the worst ways, but while there are a few flashes of nearly terminal pretension here, most of the time Newbury has the good sense to reign himself in, and his broad celebrations of women, good times, and the mysteries of the universe (as well as decrying the war in Vietnam that was still raging) are well served by his ambitious phrasing and strong, supple tenor voice. And given Newbury's later career as a photographer specializing in glamor shots of teenage models, "Let's Hang Some Pictures Tonight" sounds more than a little prescient. Half a Month of May Days is a good bit short of a lost masterpiece, but it's certainly the work of a talented artist who was well-served in the studio as he was working out a rather ambitious musical vision, and folks with a taste for the acid-tinged side of country-rock will find it well worth investigating. 


Texan born, Curt Newbury began picking folk guitar in the coffee houses then became a flying instructor and a licensed hypnotist. He recorded his only solo album in 1970 at The Sound Factory in Hollywood, produced by Don Hall. Backed up by four members of Kaleidoscope:- Lagos, Kaplan, the enigmatic Parsley/Budha (aka Fenrus Epp or Chester Crill) and Ron Johnson, plus Mike Deasy and some other players, Newbury composed and sang all the tracks resulting in an interesting album of West Coast folk/rock with some brilliant guitar solos.

It's excellent, West-coast, folk-rock with a fair amount of country twang and some psychedelic influences (both chemical and musical, I imagine). The lyrics are good and touch on the appropriate concerns of the time (love, protesting the war, hanging pictures--I guess times haven't changed that much). 

The band (which consists of the majority of the fine psychedelic group, Kaleidoscope [U.S.]) is in top form, and Mike Deasy contributes some smokin' guitar solos. In addition to writing his own material Newbury was also a flying instructor and a licensed hypnotist (although I'm not sure how those activities influenced his musical work). 

The personnel: 
Richard Aplanalp clarinet 
Mike Deasy guitar, mandolin 
Coffi Hall percussion 
Howard Johnson tuba 
Ron Johnson bass 
Jeff Kaplan guitar, organ, bass, piano 
Paul Lagos drums 
Rick Matthews percussion 
Curt Newbury vocals, guitar 
Templeton Parsley (Max Buda) electric violin, harmonica 
Pat Smith bass fiddle 

01 S&C See Me (04:40)
02 Christ, How Easy It Could Be (04:03)
03 To Marcia (02:41)
04 Highchair Blue (03:16)
05 Let's Hang Some Pictures Tonight (04:04)
06 Half a Month of Maydays (03:40)
07 Colonel Haygood (03:30)
08 Girl Is Just Too Much (04:24)
09 Maybe Summer Bells (03:32)
10 Private Jackson Regrets (02:05) 

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