A late night of doing paperwork for an upcoming trip to Hungary and move to Czechia brought me to this absolute gem of a folk-prog album. Yoshiko Sai released a few albums in the mid-1970s which were not well-received at the time, but listeners’ tastes have finally caught up with her mellow, trippy, slightly psychedelic songs.
Psych
[Music] JOHN 3:16 – Sinner’s Prayer
Wave after wave of beautifully crunchy, hypnotic drone is what makes JOHN 3:16’s new release (a reissue from 2011, apparently), a 30-minute affair, so appealing. The guitar playing is so heavily textured that you feel like a sonic blanket has wrapped you up, making you forget, albeit temporarily, the vagaries of the world. Drone music tends to be hazy, but this release would have been a stunner during the psychedelic 1970s as much as it is today.
This is a stunning mini-album. Many compliments to Philippe Gerber, JOHN 3:16’s leader and guitarist, for pointing me to this reissue.
[Music] Bango – Hell the World (Inferno No Mundo)
This came as a nice surprise while checking out some fuzz-laden garage tracks on Reddit today. As it turns out, Bango also have this available via Bandcamp.
[Music] Q65 – Night
Dutch psychedelic band Q65 were a band I discovered reading magazines like Record Collector, who hyped them up as a band with a monstrous reputation. They were, and to my ears, are, among the best bands of the late 1960s.
[Article] Gong founder Daevid Allen has six months to live
Very sad news to report, though it’s surely made its way throughout the progressive and pyschedelic rock communities. Daevid Allen, the beloved founder of Gong and member of Soft Machine, is suffering from neck cancer. He has decided to forego any more treatment, and has six months to live.
A strange factoid to pass on: when I worked at a local record shop in Los Angeles, the actor Sherman Hemsley (George Jefferson of ‘The Jeffersons‘ TV series) was a client of mine. He had the strangest and most interesting taste in music, and was particularly fond of progressive rock. I was told some years later that it was he who had spent a good sum of money to bring Daevid and company out to the United States for a tour.
What strange bedfellows those two made.
[Sample] Verckys et l´Orchestre Vévé – Congolese Funk, Afrobeat & Psychedelic Rumba 1969-1978
The Internet is a treasure trove which never ceases to amaze. Thanks to the enterprising souls over at Analog Africa, a brilliant reissue label from Germany, we get to here these long-forgotten wonders from the country formerly known as Zaïre, now the Democratic Republic of The Congo.
A Miscellany Of Tasteful Music 