Music that is psychedelic

Ness Rowlah

Norwegian Wood
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For me:psychedelic = cosmic guitar boogie, ie like Steve Hillage's strong run in the '70s

(it's 30 years since I picked up "Green" in a sale for 2 quid, played it to death along with Kate Bush, Hawkwind and all the punk).
 

DJ PIMP

Well-known member
last musical revelation i had was a couple of years back after taking the pots. listening to shuttle 358 and realising that every sound be it melodic, percussive, or texture was being treated in terms of pitch and that in being in so rhythmic and repetetive each piece was like one big arpeggiation. of course, it could have simply been that i was high.

either way it changed the way i thought about composition and tone.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
I don't know if anyone else here will agree, but to me this is quite psychedelic:


Best listened to on headphones (when is music ever NOT best listened to on headphones?)...
 

mistersloane

heavy heavy monster sound
I don't know if anyone else here will agree, but to me this is quite psychedelic:


It's such a fine line between prog, mental illness and psychedelia.

For me, this one treads into prog. This thread is taking over my life - I'm spending in inordinate amount of time thinking about it at the moment - but is the difference between prog and psychedelia where it's going? I don't think psychedelia knows where it's going - hence it's affiliation with that sort of jazz - and prog I think does know where it's going. Like, if you were to play it.

I don't know much about Strapping Young Lad though, and I listened to all of that song, which is alot for me. He sounds like he listens to alot of Peter Hammill.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
"It's such a fine line between prog, mental illness and psychedelia."
On vinylvulture someone asked where psych ended and prog began - someone else replied "at 3 minutes and 22 seconds" .... but there was no discussion of when mental illness kicks in unfortunately.

"I don't think psychedelia knows where it's going - hence it's affiliation with that sort of jazz - and prog I think does know where it's going"
Do you reckon? Maybe that's right, psych is a bit more light-hearted and playful but prog is serious and ponderous and is setting out to make some weird music godammit. Or is that just the stereotype?

"This thread is taking over my life - I'm spending in inordinate amount of time thinking about it at the moment"
Great. Cheers.
 

zhao

there are no accidents
OMG steve hillage. i bought that green album when i was like 13, not knowing what the fuck it was but only the cover was interesting...
 

vimothy

yurp
Psychedelic music is pretty much how I define what I like to listen to. But of course, there's pyschedelic and there's Psychedelic.
 

mms

sometimes
OMG steve hillage. i bought that green album when i was like 13, not knowing what the fuck it was but only the cover was interesting...

yeah i have this on green vinyl, i don't like it as much as the gong stuff that i love, used to spend a silly amount of time listening to gong when i was trippping on mushrooms as a kid, used to listen to early aphex too, that was much more heavy to listen to, the early singles, the ravey ones really, and polygon window album, big slightly sinister music with lots of weird space and decay.
 

Client Eastwood

Well-known member
Apols for backtracking just catching up . . .


@baboon2004 so what's the story behind Riot (page1)

re : psychedelic dub (page2) This came on as I was walking
home last night the fog had come down and it fitted the atmosphere completely. Repetitive, dense and disorientating vocals all over the place. Devon Irons and Dr Alimantado. Listen to it all if you can all, it slowly fills up your headspace.

re : Jazz and Drones Alice Coltrane w/ Pharoah Saunders on Ptah when he is pushing this one note further and further just that 20 sec segment is enough for my mind to melt. For a long time I thought it just sounded harsh but then one day it was beautiful.

The way the santoor* is used in Indian music as the drone works well for me too.

edit : i think i mean sanrangi*
 
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IdleRich

IdleRich
"The way the santoor is used in Indian music as the drone works well for me too."
I like droning as well - at least in principle, not always in practice. There's that irregular krautrock type night in London called The Drones Club which I think is a truly brilliant name (if you don't know it's also the name of the club for workshy chinless wonders in PG Wodehouse books - the reason being of course that the drones are the bees that aren't worker bees).
I always mention it but Michael Bundt's tune The Brain of Oskar Panizza from Just Landed Cosmic Kid is one of my all time favourites - amazing mixture of throbbing moog bass drones and crazy breakbeat drumming and the odd siren and horse noise over the top. Does anyone know any tunes that are in the same style as that (the other question I always ask) 'cause it's utterly amazing.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Maybe beats in the drones is defeating the point though. But if so I'm happy to be a philistine.
People have mentioned the link between religion and psychedelia but no-one has said anything about space - I think that a lot of people talk about realising the vastness of the universe and stuff but I can't think of (m)any psychedelic tracks that use theremin or other instruments which are commonly associated with spacey sounds. Perhaps it's because space is cold.
 

vimothy

yurp
Indian classical is one of the prime causes of psychdelia in modern music.

Rich -- can post a link to your tune on something like YouTube?
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
"Rich -- can post a link to your tune on something like YouTube?"
Well, I've looked before but never been able to find it on there although I'm surprised 'cause it's fairly well known. I might be up by now of course but I can't get on at work so I can't check. Someone more technically able than me might have an mp3 or something I guess.
 

Client Eastwood

Well-known member
Indian classical is one of the prime causes of psychdelia in modern music.

Rich -- can post a link to your tune on something like YouTube?

yeah its something im slowly getting around to exploring but there's just so much material I just dont know where to start so any recs would be welcome.

I started with this
http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:wxfqxq9jld6e
which is brilliant.

And then I read this http://www.buckinghammusic.com/tall.html which gave me some insight into the terminlogy and structures.
 

vimothy

yurp
Download the Ocora (Indian) back catalogue. (Maybe Zhao can help you with some links??)

One other avenue to explore might be NY minimalism -- La Monte Young and gang are heavily indebted to Indian classical, and there's a continuum that runs through them straight into modern (psychedelic) rawk. Check out this for some ideas.

The awesome Prandit Pran Nath (one-time guru of Terry Riley and LMY, IIRC) is a current fave, and spans both the above groups.
 
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Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
It's such a fine line between prog, mental illness and psychedelia.

Well not so much a fine line as a very blurry, vague line, I think. It is definitely prog, however. The mental illness thing comes through very strongly in some the lyrics, and the dude knows a thing or two about it.

What does Peter Hammill do btw, and is he any good?
 

Client Eastwood

Well-known member
Download the Ocora (Indian) back catalogue. (Maybe Zhao can help you with some links??)

One other avenue to explore might be NY minimalism -- La Monte Young and gang are heavily indebted to Indian classical, and there's a continuum that runs through them straight into modern (psychedelic) rawk. Check out this for some ideas.

The awesome Prandit Pran Nath (one-time guru of Terry Riley and LMY, IIRC) is a current fave, and spans both the above groups.

Thanks for the tips vimothy. yeah ill check on Different Waters (Zhao) last time I looked i didn't see any.
 
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