109
by SecondEdition_Archive
I want to contribute a couple albums that I've always felt to be extremely psychedelic, but which aren't at all "psychedelic rock" (man).
Black Sabbath - Master of Reality - You can feel the weed as soon as they rip into "Sweet Leaf." Totally psychedelic.
PiL - Second Edition and/or The Flowers of Romance - Possibly Flowers more than Second Edition, because the drugs, the insanity, and the experimentalism are off the charts on Flowers - not that they weren't on Second Edition, but this is crazyass shit. The songs aren't as good on Flowers, though.
Tricky - Pre-Millennium Tension - This album, to me, is the "Second Edition" of the '90's. Yeah, it's hip-hop, but A) who cares, and B) even people who don't dig hip-hop (and do dig challenging, great music) should like this. Or "trip-hop," if you want, but with Tricky, that label is misapplied, even if he was in Massive Attack. This is NOT music you can chill out to, but it's suffused with pot. It's weird - the lyrics honestly aren't too great, but the music itself is that good, genuinely innovative and difficult. The album's about as dark as an abandoned mineshaft, with arctic, truly evil electronics and beats offset by the warmth of Martina's lovely voice and the pot-blasted rasp of Tricky's hideous croak, lyrics full of drug-fueled paranoia and hatred, fucked-up guitar, keyboard, drums, and other instruments wavering in and out of the dubby mix (the album was recorded over four weeks in Jamaica during 1996), and weird moments a-plenty. To me, it's really psychedelic. Everyone should try and find this one - there are a couple numbers which aren't too compelling, but the best songs here map out territory for hip-hop which simply has not been explored before.
Bullwackie's All Stars - Africa Roots, Act I - A dub compilation from Lloyd Barnes, the Bronx dub impresario of the '80's. Perfect instrumental dub to mellow out to. I bet you could start smelling colors if you got high while listening to this.
Life...life...I know it's got its ups and downs.
Groucho Marx wrote:Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it, misdiagnosing it and then misapplying the wrong remedies.