Black Psychedelia primer

At long last, here's my Black Psychedelia primer: [denniscooperblog.com] I spent 9 days writing and researching it (more time than the vast majority of projects for which I've gotten paid), and I'm very proud of it. You can find many lists on-line of people's favorite psych-soul albums or articles about "lots of rappers are now talking about acid and mushrooms," but I haven't seen anyone tie this all together the way I did.

Whew! That's a lot of work! Glad to see Black Merda and Demon Fuzz, and I'm always happy to see a spotlight shining on the great Sonny Sharrock. I'm also happy to see some, er, love given to Love's early 70s work - it may not be Forever Changes, but Arthur Lee did some good stuff on those records.

And hey, the Family Stand! I'm quite partial to the Moon in Scorpio album.

I really dug Curtis Harding's first album and didn't realize he had a new one out. That song is quite a bit different than that first record - glad to see he's got some ambition.

My only caveat is the absence of The Veldt, who disappeared into obscurity pretty quickly in the 90s, but are undergoing a revival, thanks to being openly acknowledged as an influence on Miguel and The Weeknd. They put out a new EP last year.

I totally forgot about the Veldt till you mentioned them. I do remember them doing Cocteau Twins/shoegaze-influenced rock.

The Harding song I selected is not totally representative of his new album, which is more neo-soul-influenced, but there's also a heavy Hendrix inspiration, along with Curtis Mayfield, Isaac Hayes, and more modern artists like D'Angelo. There are elements of psychedelic soul and funk throughout.

> I totally forgot about the Veldt till you mentioned them.

The Veldt! Aphrodisiac was one of those albums I picked up in the cheap bin, having read about them briefly somewhere -- talk about a good find. Must add them to my show soon -- perhaps my traditional "bands of brothers" show (the Chavis twins were the mainstay of that band).

And still are.

Last year the band put out an EP called The Shocking Fuzz of Your Electric Fur:
The Drake Equation (supposedly Drake has a song that samples them, but I've no idea what) and just released a new digital EP called Thanks to the Moth and Areanna Rose. After years of dormancy they're really starting to ramp it back up.

They also made one album under the name Apollo Heights. I'd love to get my hands on it, but it's more rare than a House Republican having something to give shooting victims besides thoughts and prayers.

There's one contemporary band I've discovered since that primer was posted whom I think I maybe should have included. They're called Here Lies Man, and the concept behind the band is "Black Sabbath meets Afrobeat." I am actually not sure if they have any black members, but I do know the guy who thought up the idea behind the band is Latino and their drummer is Herbie Mann's son.

I think they got beaten to that concept by the Budos Band's Burnt Offering album, but I'm gonna check 'em out anyway.

They are affiliated with Antibalas, and have toured with them and the Budos Band.

I got a Here Lies Man record from their label's annual "please get this shit out of our warehouse" sale, and I dig it a lot! More song-oriented than the Budos Band, and heavier, but still groovy in all the right ways. Thanks for shouting them out seven years ago!

The Veldt are opening for Modern English when they play here (DC) in a couple of weeks.

Funkadelic is still worth seeing. The shows can be rather sloppy but the musicianship isn't. That's DeWayne 'Blackbyrd' McKnight soloing on Super Stupid. Usually he and Ricky Rouse trade off for Maggot Brain and that is worth seeing.

I saw the Veldt in 2016 for the opening night party of Levitation (which ended up being cancelled). They were pretty good - not the most demonstrative band I've ever seen, but they sounded great. They're more of a mix of shoegaze and R&B now than they were in the early 90s - the A.R. Kane influence has really come out.

Now the time has come (Time!)
There's no place to run (Time!)
I might get burned up by the sun (Time!)
But I had my fun (Time!)
I've been loved and put aside (Time!)
I've been crushed by tumbling tide (Time!)
And my soul has been psychedelicized (Time!)

(repeat shouting "Time"!for 10 minutes. )



And does the Temptations "Psychedelic Shack" count?

I did link to a clip of the Chambers Brothers' 15-minute version of "Time Has Come Today," and pretty much all the Temptations' late '60s and early '70s would count.

I highly recommend checking out Chaz Bundick's work. Toro y moi has been a large influence over the last decade, practically starting the chillwave movement which is essentially psychedelic pop. This year he put out a psych rock album called Chaz meets the Mattsons 2. Very important modern artist.

This is a great piece of work, Steve. Thank you!

I wracked my brain to see if it could cough up any contributions to the list, and managed to come up with a grand total of three, probably peripheral at best, options. Do you think any of these might count?

"Ghost Town" by the Specials. Not sure if it's quite psychedelia or not. It gets pretty dubby, anyhow, especially on extended versions.

"Out of the Silent Planet" by King's X. Other stuff on Gretchen Goes to Nebraska might fit, also, but that was the first thing I thought of. It has sitars!

Large chunks of New Forms by Roni Size & Reprazent - is drum & bass psychedelic? It definitely lends itself to altered states of consciousness, but whether that makes it "psychedelic" or not is probably up for debate. It is pretty deeply indebted to dub. Is it rock? Who knows anymore.

Back in the 90s, Lance Robertson, aka DJ Lance Rock of Yo Gabba Gabba, had a band in St. Louis called My Other Self that made some pretty psychedelic leaning dance music. Since they never got any further than St. Louis clubs and some now unplayable (at least on my computer) tracks on an ancient MySpace page, they don't really bear much discussion in a broader context. But Yo Gabba Gabba made perfect sense to anyone who knew Lance when it came out.



Post Edited (11-08-17 09:05)

I don't how, given that I was living in Houston when they were making their brief ascension in the late 80s, but I forgot all about King's X. There's certainly a psychedelic edge to the whole Gretchen Goes to Nebraska album. Doug Pinnick has made much weirder albums on his own under his various (dis)guises, admittedly, but none as good as that. Hell, the band has never matched it.

I included a cover of "Ghost Town" by Kode 9 + The Spaceape. The original is my favorite Specials song, and a big inspiration on Tricky, as I noted in my intro to the Kode 9 version.

I was a King's X fan when GRETCHEN GOES TO NEBRASKA & OUT OF THE SILENT PLANET came out, but it's been years since I thought about them. If anyone had suggested them to me or if they had come to mind, I definitely would've looked some of their videos up on YouTube. They definitely did an interesting job of mixing soul influences with hard rock.

As far as Roni Size, I was conscious not to overload the day with electronic dance music, although I included a fair amount of trip-hop, because its intersection with psychedelia (starting with the very name of acid house) runs quite deep. I learned about the contemporary group Acid Arab, who are not black but mix house music with Middle Eastern and North African influences (six of the 10 songs on their album MUSIQUE D'FRANCE, with its politically pointed title, are sung in Arabic and one is sung in Turkish - the remainder are instrumental), when I started looking into artists playing the Liverpool Festival of Psychedelia earlier this year.

I have heard Toro Y Moi, but not in a while and I thought they were white.

Ha! That's probably why "Ghost Town" occurred to me at all after reading your primer - you'd already mentioned it.

Don't mind me. I get more feeble-minded with every passing day.

Haha, I won't ask. I guess he gets lumped in with white guys like Ariel Pink and Neon Indian.

Here is the lead single off his most recent album:
[www.youtube.com]