To my mind psychedelic music is all that much better if the
acts that produced the music in a studio can convincingly reproduce it in a
live environment. Even better still is when the act actually improves on the
original recordings live. I’m sure that’s
why, for example, the Deadheads followed The Grateful Dead for all those years
and why the Syd Barrett Pink Floyd was so revered. It certainly explains to me why I think two
of the all time best gigs I’ve ever experienced were the Primal Scream shows on
their Xtrmntr and the original Screamadelica tours.
Anyway, psychedelica is what binds together today’s
listening matter. On a work day that I
really needed to feel inspired and break on through my thought processes on a couple
of issues that demanded my attention, these albums really did the trick.
(# 347) The Flaming
Lips – Transmissions From The Satellite Heart (1993)
This was the album that turned The Flaming Lips into stars
for a short while, thanks mainly to the most unlikely hit She Don’t Use
Jelly. It was also the first of their
albums that I had heard but I didn’t even get to that track before I became a
fan. Opening track, Turn It On, starts
with the sound of radio dial being moved and is a catchy track before seguing
into the lyrically weird Pilot Can At The Queer Of God and its irresistibly catchy
“She likes Helli-copters/I think she does” refrain. The aforementioned single, Be My Head and
Superhumans are equally catchy but the band still kept room for inspired lunacy
that is Moth In The Incubator and album closer, Slow Nerve Action.
(# 348) Mercury Rev -
Yerself Is Steam (1991)
Transmissions From The Satellite Heart was the first album
the Flaming Lips made after the departure of guitarist Jonathan Donahue to form
Mercury Rev and the release of this debut album. The opening cuts here, Chasing A Bee and
Syringe Mouth sound like they’ve come straight off a Lips album but it wasn’t
long before Donahue found his stride and sound.
With Frittering he created a 9 minute epic, a stately island of sanity still
played frequently in their live shows today and which also anticipated the
future masterpiece that was Deserters Songs.
My copy of the CD also contains the classic Car Wash Hair as a hidden
track.
(# 349) MGMT –
Congratulations (2010)
With all of the catchy, singalong numbers such as Kids that
littered their debut album Oracular Spectacular and received mass airplay on
JJJ here, I thought that MGMT were destined to be one of those acts that would flame
out quickly. Indeed, the first few
tracks of this follow up being more of the same suggested that this might
happen. Then something quite miraculous
happens as the record makes a massive turn to the experimental that is truly
inspiring. The 12 minute Siberian
Breaks, Brian Eno, Lady Dada’s Nightmare and the closing title tracks are the
sort of things that give experimental guitar driven music a good word. If only even band could challenge their
audience like this.
(# 350) Tame Impala –
Innerspeaker (2010)
For reasons that are beyond me, their most recent album
Lonerism is being feted all over the world.
Don’t get me wrong, it is a fine album, but the real mystery is why so
many missed this. This is arguably the
finest album released by an Australian act since The Avalanches Since I Met
You. To these ears, Kevin Parker has
created an album of simmering beauty that recalls the blissed out sounds of
classic 60s psychedelica but utilising the benefit of modern recording
techniques. (It’s a revelation on headphones.) Just about every track sounds
like a potential hit with It Is Not Meant To Be, Solitude Is Bliss and
especially Why Won’t You Make Up Your Mind standing out. 
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