Psychedelic

Record #537: The Mars Volta – Octahedron (2009)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

After the perfect one-two punch of De-Loused in the Comatorium and Frances the Mute, the Mars Volta faltered a bit. Amputechture and The Bedlam in Goliath tried to recapture much of the free-form wildness that made the first two records so great, but they were a little bit too untethered from the earth (vinyl copies are north of a hundred dollars, so that might be the sour grapes talking).

In the dust of the bloated, over-ambitious Bedlam, the group shifted gears and made Octahedron, which they described as an “unplugged” record—and in my opinion, the best record since Frances.

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Record #462: Kraftwerk – Autobahn (1974)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

autobahn.jpgBefore there was Daft Punk, there was Kraftwerk. The storied German electronica pioneers were playing with vocoders and pretending to be robots decades before the French duo picked up their LED-infused helmets.

But Kraftwerk wasn’t always the inorganic collective they’re remembered for. And while Autobahn is the first album to feature their signature robotic sound, it doesn’t stay there forever.

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Record #434: King Crimson – In the Court of the Crimson King (1969)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald
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The sixties were a weird time. And it had the music to match.
Every band, from the Beatles to the Byrds to the Beach Boys, dabbled in making some of the weirdest music of their career. Every band had at least one psychedelic album—even perennial rock and roll heroes the Rolling Stones. But by 1969, most of them had moved on from the weirdness of psychedelia.
But nobody told King Crimson that.
Their debut, In the Court of the Crimson King, isn’t just a coattail-riding, trend-following copycat that happens to be late to the game. It is a magnum opus of psychedelia that is still rightly celebrated today. The opening track, “21st Century Schizoid Man” is a balls-to-the-wall freight train of horns and guitar noodling (that Kanye West sampled, strangely enough). It’s seven and a half minutes of frenzy.
But as it fades, the record never revisits that bombast again. Which it doesn’t need to. Most of the record is driven by subdued, exploring guitar lines and Mellotron. At times, it flirts pretty heavily with jazz fusion (high praise). “Epitaph” and “The Court of the Crimson King” are epic ballads that manage to capture a dramatic scope that most psychedelic acts were devoid of. And it does that through extended arrangements and experimental composition.
While many psychedelic bands would eventually evolve into progressive rock, In the Court of the Crimson King manages to ride the line between them. As a result, this record is an absolute gem.

Record #433: Bailey William and the Cherranes – Emerson (2015)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald
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Let me tell you a little bit about my friend Bailey Williams.
The first time we met, she was just 16. She was opening for a punk show, armed only with an acoustic guitar. She scraped the strings and wailed with the abandon that for a moment I felt like I took a trip to 1960s Greenwich Village.
She was a force of nature, and it was immediately apparent. It didn’t take long for her to enlist a band behind her. But there was some talk amongst the local scene that perhaps her storm would be tempered by the expansion in her soundscape—that it would tame her rawness to a more “palatable,” and lukewarm sound.
But then, they dropped Emerson.
Any worries that Bailey’s edges would be dulled by introducing more instruments are completely assuaged. This album is a storm of Moogs, electric guitars, and keyboards. And in the eye of the storm is Bailey and her acoustic guitar, playing with just as much grit and fire as she ever did.
Which isn’t to mean that this is an angry album. By no means. This is an album filled with great pop tunes and love songs. But there is a chaos to those songs that creates a consistently engaging and powerful listening experience.

Record #432: Elder – Reflections of a Floating World (2017)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald
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Metal is a strange beast. For all of its tropes and archetypes, there is as nearly as much diversity under the metal umbrella as there is in pop music.
And while many metal bands focus narrowly in on their niche, Elder sprawls out in all directions.
Reflections of a Floating World runs the gamut from Sabbath-y doom metal, ISIS-esque post metal, Pink Floydish progressive rock, and some straightforward Krautrock.—often in the same song. With the exception of the singularly focused “Sonntag,” every song here is a massive, shapeshifting epic of cosmic proportions.
But despite the scope of its massive sprawl, the record never seems unfocused. No moment feels out of place. Rather, Elder has created a sonic world that is wholly its own, exploring each unique region throughout the record. It’s a world I want to get lost in, and maybe even my favorite album from 2017.

Record #391: Fleet Foxes – Crack-Up (2017)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald
Looking back a decade* I don’t think anyone could have guessed the immense impact Fleet Foxes would have on the indie scene.
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And while it’s true that Fleet Foxes themselves have never received much mainstream recognition, their acolytes certainly did. Their folk pop debut LP, with its particular palette of acoustic instruments, thick harmonies, and breakneck strumming patterns, opened wide the gates for all the Mumfords, Lumineers, Monsters, Men, and Magnetic Zeros that would follow the Foxes’ map right into top 40 radio stations and car commercials.

But Fleet Foxes were not satisfied to float on the rising deluge of their copycats. Instead, their sophomore outing found them turning inward. Anyone looking for anything as bouncing and immediate as “White Winter Hymnal” was sorely disappointed. Rather, the tracklist was filled with ominous baroque opuses. Songs took unexpected twists and turns, ending up in very different places than they started (see: the eleven minute “The Shrine/An Argument,” “Helplessness Blues”). If Fleet Foxes was the sound of vagrants playing guitar in the woods, Helplessness Blues was the chants of a group of prophets standing on the ocean’s edge forecasting the end of days.

And yet, Helplessness Blues seems almost poppy compared to Crack-Up.

In the six years since Helplessness Blues, the promised apocalypse came. And Fleet Foxes is right in the middle of it.

This album is less Helplessness Blues’ chameleon than a cuttlefish. Helplessness Blues’ colors shifted, but slowly. Crack-Up is a constant flash of transforming hues.

Keys change between lines of a verse. Choruses appear once and are contorted on their coda. Tracks fade between eachother without stopping to breathe. Which sometimes makes it confusing, as many of the tracks play like many songs played as a medley.

This is far and away the most ambitious thing Fleet Foxes or any of their contemporaries have done. This is the headier moments of their previous albums stretched into a full-length.

When their debut landed on us, I often described Fleet Foxes as “folksy Beach Boys.” If their self-titled was Pet Sounds, this is their Smile. An album that features all the same colors, but arranged in a massive baroque pop suite that is as inviting as it is impenetrable.
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*(yes–Fleet Foxes’ first EP was released eleven years ago)