The only music worth its salt is psychedelic..

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Also, if Future is psychedelic then a lot of rap music is psychedelic too and is extremely popular. Which somewhat scotches the "there's no psychedelic music anymore" argument, no?

This might relate to the music I was talking about in the autotune rap thread - lil yachty et al - which is definitely druggy, dreamlike, etc. Although I actually hear that as not being escapist, cos reality IS virtual now, it sounds like virtual reality.
 

droid

Well-known member
I confess that I dont think I have any idea what psychedelic means in musical terms, I know when I hear it but...

There's the obvious aesthetic signifiers, exotic instruments, unpredictable arrangements, free structures.

Fundamentally, I take it to mean a kind of experimental exuberance.

I think the problem is that its often applied to different elements of craft, so you could have lyrical psychedelia, or psychedelic composition, or even a psychedelic philosophy which aren't necessarily reflected in other musical elements of song.

Its a bit like ambient in the sense that its a completely open descriptor.
 

droid

Well-known member
I recommended a read of Hoffman's 'My problem child'. Some quite entertaining and very analytical descriptions of his and his colleague's trips surrounded by a ton of very dry descriptions of his pharmaceutical career.
 

droid

Well-known member
Also tangentially related - there's a couple of equally dry trip descriptions in Herbie Hancocks' new autobiography.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Isn't there a distinction to be made between psychedelic and hippy? Wouldn't call miles hippy.

Well yeah, I mean for one thing a hippy is sort of an inherently 'white' thing to be, isn't it? Is it even possible to be a hippy, as such, if you're not white?
 

firefinga

Well-known member
Well yeah, I mean for one thing a hippy is sort of an inherently 'white' thing to be, isn't it? Is it even possible to be a hippy, as such, if you're not white?

Since most hippies had a middle class background you'd think that's the case. However Jimmy Hendrix went quite hippy, and the old pictures and footage shows black hippies here and there.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Hmm, I guess - had't considered Hendrix. Point still stands that the stereotypical hippy is (almost) always white, though.

What I was getting at is that hippy-ism, like the Beat movement in the previous decade, was very consciously a rejection of white, Christian, bourgeois values - and you can't meaningfully reject those values if you (or your family/community) were never signed up to them in the first place.
 

firefinga

Well-known member
Hmm, I guess - had't considered Hendrix. Point still stands that the stereotypical hippy is (almost) always white, though.

What I was getting at is that hippy-ism, like the Beat movement in the previous decade, was very consciously a rejection of white, Christian, bourgeois values - and you can't meaningfully reject those values if you (or your family/community) were never signed up to them in the first place.

Hippies were absolutely about Christian values - their "peace, love n unity" was christian charity 100%.
 
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padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
completely open descriptor
agree, but individual psychedelic mindsets, usually but not always drug-related, are/can be more stringently codified

i.e. some things might be psychedelic while definitely not being LSD psychedelic. I'd agree w/punk being mostly anti-psychedelic but either way it's not acid music.

punk as musical reaction was more about excess/bloat, i.e. prog, than psychedelia per se, strip it back to the bare bones. also nihilism as reaction against (failed) utopianism.

don't forget also lotta proto-punk v psychedelic content, i.e. MC5 - Starship + Black to Comm (whence Spacemen 3), proto punk not punk like Neu!, etc

psychedelic punk was actually one of my minor obsessions for a bit, v interested in the unison but it's p rare. here's a rare + good example.
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
this also, a personal fave current/modern hxc band, revealing a real potential untapped vein

psychedelic in the way I've seen people describe black metal as psychedelic, repetitive entrancing overwhelming wall of noise

the way hypnotic disco can be entrancing, approached from a different angle
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
there were/are plenty of non-white (+ non-middle class) hippies btw, it's just a different thing if you don't have that drop-out/safety net background

there were freaky drug/rock scenes in Mexico, various South American countries for example
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
always found trance v disappointing. such a great concept, such a terrible reality. psytrance esp the worst, neither psychedelic nor entrancing. bad rock music.

old 80s Goa tapes, what dudes were playing then, any kinda roots of trance tho has lotta cool things, this came up in another thread awhile ago, w/thirdform I think

like this right here is some proper drug music

see also the gnarliest, most fucked-up early Chicago house classics, i.e. Sleezy D - I've Lost Control, some true mindfuck biz right there
 
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DannyL

Wild Horses
this also, a personal fave current/modern hxc band, revealing a real potential untapped vein

psychedelic in the way I've seen people describe black metal as psychedelic, repetitive entrancing overwhelming wall of noise

the way hypnotic disco can be entrancing, approached from a different angle

This is great on a black metal tip - though more mellow than the track you posted, "ambient black metal", who knew?: http://loveallday.com/black-construction-paper-a-mixtape-by-josh-bearman/ - that track is really interesting , I don't listen to enough metal or hardcore to really be able to hear the novelty of what they're doing - it's hard to place but some quite freaky sounded layered guitar.
 
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DannyL

Wild Horses
Alistair at GreenGalloway is an old punk/squatter and he has posted a lot of punk/traveller history that shows the punk/hippy divide as a bit of retrospective imposition - that's his memories of it anyway - he's coming very much from the point where punks stopped squatting in the UK and headed out the city in vans. I guess Hawkwind and Ozric Tentacles would be the obvious bands.
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
"ambient black metal", who knew?
ya that side of black metal has been around for awhile, virtually since the beginning. all those extended Burzum keyboard workouts, even Bathory has some iirc.

more recently but still going backaways there's the shoegaze black metal thing, Alcest + that. not something I'm into/follow closely but a pretty decent sized niche.

that thing I posted is d-beat (specifically following the Swedish tradition, "snutskallar" is a reference to "Sprackta Snutskallar" by Shitlickers) not BM but same principles apply
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Hippies were absolutely about Christian values - their "peace, love n unity" was christian charity 100%.

Well Jesus was really the ur-hippy, if you want to go down that route. I'm obviously talking about the values of conservative white America in the 1950s-60s, which were not particularly peace-n-love oriented and certainly weren't compatible with dropping out of education/work, casual sex, taking acid and wild orgiastic dancing to essentially "negro" styles of music.
 
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DannyL

Wild Horses
Paidrag - cheers, very interesting. I know nothing about metal or any of its mutant variants, so interesting when something pops up that can sit easily with my other listening.

Just looked up Alistair's blog and found this via searching for "punk hippy":
First a trickle, then a surge of the punk generation became 'hippy travellers', much to the discomfiture of tribal elders like John Pendragon.
https://greengalloway.blogspot.co.uk/2005/03/

So, the opposition is maybe less binary than one might thing, at least as it was lived in the UK.
 

firefinga

Well-known member
My memory is blurry, but weren't PM Dawn, De La soul and most definitely Arrested Development some sort of Hip hop Hippies? Or at least that was theirsales pitch.
 
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