Tag Archives: psych

VARIOUS ARTISTS – So High I’ve Been: A European Rock Anthology 1967-1973

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When it comes to compilations, the UK rock scene of the late 1960s/early 1970s has been covered extensively – to the point of absolute overkill. It’s easy to feel that this is a part of musical history that no longer needs revisiting, just as many “new” articles on The Beatles, the Stones and Queen now border on being digital landfill. With that in mind, it’s always far more interesting when attentions are turned to overseas acts. Cherry Red’s rather excellent set ‘Living On The Hill’ promised “a Danish underground trip” upon its release in 2020 and subsequently did exactly what it said on the tin, giving the keener rock fan three discs’ worth of genuinely unfamiliar sounds from the North, with Blast Furnace being the compilation’s nearest to a “known” name.

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Listen: The Quality Of Mercury share new single ‘The Voyager’

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Things have taken a surprisingly heavy turn in the Quality of Mercury camp. ‘The Voyager’ – the first single and title track from the band’s second album opens with a riff that, unexpectedly, blends the density of classic shoegaze with the dark edge of doom metal. This, as you would expect, sets about crushing the audience in a very direct manner.

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THE REAL GONE SINGLES BAR #130

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Welcome back to the Real Gone Singles Bar, the place where we explore some of the more interesting individual tracks that have landed in our inbox over the past few weeks. This time around, we bring you a fantastic number from a British alt-folk band, the return of some cosmic, psychy legends, a great piece of synth based material, some well crafted pop punk…and more. As always, we hope you find something new to enjoy!

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VARIOUS ARTISTS – Middle Earth: The Soundtrack of London’s Legendary Psychedelic Club 1967-1969

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Whenever psychedelic and swinging London appears in documentary footage, there’s always a tendency to suggest, to those of later generations, that Joe Boyd’s short-lived UFO club was where everybody hung out. This is largely to do with an easily available and well circulated clip of Syd Barrett and The Pink Floyd hammering through ‘Astronomy Domine’ against a home made light show. The late 60s saw lots of other underground activity, not least of all at UFO’s successor, Middle Earth.

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VARIOUS ARTISTS – Can’t Seem To Come Down: The American Sounds Of 1968

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Between the release of The Beach Boys ‘Pet Sounds’ in May 1966 and the first Woodstock Festival in August 1969, the American rock and pop scenes went into overdrive. With the groundbreaking ‘God Only Knows’, Brian Wilson had shown how grand “pop” could be in the hands of a master; the birth of psychedelia meant that garage rock grew into something much bigger and more interesting than a selection bands churning out variants of ‘Louie Louie’, and the blues morphed into sprawling jams which birthed a generation of guitar heroes. A prolonged period of experimentation arguably reached its peak in 1968, with The Byrds releasing their last works with David Crosby (at least for a time), Moby Grape issuing a double LP (‘Wow/Grape Jam’), the arrival of Spirit’s debut (helmed by the fantastic ‘Fresh-Garbage’), The Velvet Underground’s ‘White Light/White Heat’ proving their Warhol overseen debut wasn’t just some arty fluke, and the Grateful Dead issuing their show piece ‘Dark Star’ as a single. Even Simon & Garfunkel got a little out there on their fourth LP ‘Bookends’, with their masterful folk-pop joined by the vaguely psychy ‘Punky’s Dilemma’, and feeling brave enough to include Art’s audio verité ‘Voices of Old People’ as a key album track.

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