Lamp of the Universe - Acid Mantra - Lamp of the Universe is a one-man spacy psychedelic folk project from New Zealand. Multi-instrumentalist Craig Williamson uses guitars, sitars, hand drums, a single gentle voice, and other assorted noisemakers to create long cosmic odysseys that meander and drift with a pleasant breeziness. Brevity is not really a concern here, nor is song structure. This will not get the party started, but if you need a record for long afternoons spent drifting in and out of sleep, this has exactly what you need.
Earthless - Rhythms from a Cosmic Sky - Heavy instrumental psychedelia band Earthless does their best to turn your brain to goo, and comes very close to succeeding. The album consists of three long tracks of winding, molten guitar freakouts, but what's surprising is how listenable they make it, which you can credit to the rhythm section, really. Without their consistent groove, the guitar would be just so much noodling. Technically, I suppose most people will still find this to be so much noodling, but for those in the market for a mind-bending guitar workout, this is really quite brilliant.
The Spacious Mind - The Mind of a Brother - The Spacious Mind have gone through a lot of stylistic changes in their decade-plus career, from druggy folk to ambient instrumental, but this record finds them working firmly in a heavy psychedelic vein. They've got the tricks and treats of 1967 down, but they've put their own millennial spin on it. The trouble with modern psych acts is that they're playing with a style nearly forty years old now, so there can be a feeling of having heard it all before, but The Spacious Mind really pay attention to the way they manage the build and release of their songs. They're quite long, but never seem to overstay their welcome.
The Doors - L.A. Woman - This one is tied up there with The Doors' debut as their most consistent release. From the sleazy rock and roll of "The Changeling" to the low blues shuffle of "Cars Hiss By My Window" to the steamy menace of "Riders on the Storm," every track on this album is a winner. It shows their keen awareness of their musical roots while letting them display the stylistic eccentricities that made them so original. The band is in top form, and Morrison's voice has taken on a huskier tone that fits the music well, even though that was probably acquired from the hard living that occurred over the tumultuous years of their career. An absolute classic.
Blue Cheer - Vincebus Eruptum - Before I ever heard the Grateful Dead's actual material, I knew of them by reputation only. Unhinged LSD parties with wild, trippy music playing at top volume to blow your mind out of your head, that sort of thing... but when I actually heard the Dead I was disappointed. I was told to expect hallucinogenic rock euphoria, and instead I got slightly tipsy bluegrass. The point of all this is that Blue Cheer's first album sounds like what I wanted the Grateful Dead to sound like. For its time, this album was an overwhelming sonic titan, as it eschewed the acoustic folk business for cranked up amplifiers. Blown-out distortion and sludgy blues riffs given the San Francisco acid treatment, dirty bass, and pummeling drums...this is the sensory overload I was expecting.
Counting Crows - Saturday Nights and Sunday Mornings - This is a departure from the psychedelic theme, I admit, but I have spent some quality time with this record lately, and for good reason. This album is comprised of two parts, "Saturday Nights," where the band delves into tension and sin, and "Sunday Mornings," the subsequent exploration of memory and redemption. The first half of the record is what I'm mostly concerned with here, because the Saturday night side boasts some of the strongest songs that the band has yet produced, and after that, the gentler Sunday morning half seems to lag a little by comparison. But "Saturday Nights" is more than worth your time, as Duritz and company push their way through six tracks whose stories range between hard-edged, lonely New York and the deserts of the west, brimming with violence and anxiety. It's a miniature travelogue of the astral America, the one we all live in, but frequently forget to see.
