TOP PSYCHEDELIC TRACKS

THE BYRDS | Eight Miles High (1966)

‘66 was the year that psychedelic music really started to come into its own; The Beatles unleashed their backmasked Revolver on an unprepared world, the Beach Boys offered up Good Vibrations and The Byrds introduced their transitional album The Fifth Dimension. Side two, track one was the spectacular ‘Eight Miles High’; with its blatant drug references and warm, ethereal harmonies, this eerie and highly experimental track was crucial in opening the doors for psychedelic music and developing the distinctive West Coast style.

JULY | Dandelion Seeds (1968)

This little-known, retrospectively-celebrated Ealing-based band produced one of the finest and most underrated records in the history of psychedelic music. Dandelion Seeds, an off tilt and dark track is as trippy as its album cover art suggests; the band’s name bleeds from the nose of a reptile-covered hippopotamus. Built on a killer zoom bass groove, Dandelion Seeds is a pop, R&B and world music hybrid with a touch of distorted blues thrown in for good measure. Fuzz guitar fades in and out, ghostly vocals linger, tempo increases and decreases, conga drums roll; it's too much good to handle.

13TH FLOOR ELEVATORS | Levitation (1967)

Levitation is a whirling and swirling, spooky and sinister piece of glorious, golden psychedelia. Tanked up on LSD and peyote, short-lived Texan quintet the 13^th Floor Elevators produced some jaw-droppingly dope music that’s still as exciting today as it was upon its conception, even despite its crackly lo-fi production. This track sounds so overheated; the gnarling, snarling, bluesy guitar, the reverb, Roky Erikson’s deep-southern screeches and Tommy Hall’s electric jug work up something so exceptional, it's on the verge of bursting into flames. Probably the most legal trip you could have.

SYD BARRETT | Love You (1970)

Anything from Barrett’s debut solo album The Madcap Laughs is worthy of a place on this list for showcasing his unique brand of psychedelic folk, but Love You stands out by a mile. This love song is a burst of sunshine, a glimmer of joy on an otherwise downbeat album that gives a powerful insight into the crazy diamond’s shambolic state of mind. Probably made on one of the better days of his LSD-induced post-Floyd meltdown, this track sounds like a very spaced-out Syd got his hands on an ice-cream van and took it on a colourful and chaotic ride through London; rambling and jaunty, his nonsensical Cambridgeshire drawl erratically overlays a distinctively chirpy music hall piano. Dischordant and totally haphazard, but this is where its brilliance lies.

 

SILVER APPLES | Program (1968)

New York based Silver Apples were way, way, ahead of their time, zooming off into the cosmos at break neck speed with their otherworldly sounds. The duo’s avant-garde blend of psychedelic and electronic sounds was groundbreaking, and Program is a great example of their unparalleled style, featuring synthesizers and heavy sampling, of which they were pioneers. Program’s pulsing, monotone drum machine beat predicted the dance music revolution over a decade before it actually happened. 

STRAWBERRY ALARM CLOCK | Incense and Peppermints (1969)

The quintessential psych song, and a popular one at that; reaching number one in the U.S. charts in November ’67. With Incense and Peppermints, L.A.’s Strawberry Alarm Clock had produced a classic track that was stereotypically flower power in its subject matter and style; mentions of ‘beatniks’, ‘lunatics’ and ‘the colour of time’ met with sweet vocal harmonies and a melange of wonderfully psychedelic sounds made with harpsichord, flute and organ.

LOVE | Singing Cowboy (1969) 

Love didn’t end with Forever Changes, as many claim. And this track is the reason why. After the dissolution of the classic line-up, Arthur Lee reformed Love and produced the underrated album Four Sail, which features the epic Singing Cowboy. This fuzz-heavy, rolling ballad in all its marching drum and maraca-filled glory showcases a neo-Love sound that is much more psychedelic and electric in composition. Lee’s ferocious vocals are well suited to this new sound, and lyrically, Singing Cowboy has great autobiographical importance; with lines like ‘When you say goodbye, don’t you cry’ it’s difficult to tell if Lee is lamenting or renouncing his lost Love.

CAN | Yoo Doo Right (1969)

Yoo Doo Right, a gripping twenty minute tour de force, is the product of what happened when elaborately-structured psychedelic sounds collided with the antithetic and minimalistic burgeoning genre of Krautrock. Taken from Can’s debut album ‘Monster Movie’, this tribal-tinged track marries the simplicity of repetitive, hypnotic drums and bass with progressive jamming-style psychedelic influences (it was edited down from 6 hours of improvisation) and extended guitar solos.

THE VELVET UNDERGROUND | Venus in Furs (1967)

Whilst most other psychedelic bands were doing the colourful, flowery, Haight-Ashbury thing, somewhere along the East Coast the visionary Velvets were on to something completely unprecedented, offering up a darker, alternative psychedelic programme which explored the recesses of the human mind. Venus in Furs, a five minute ode to the eponymous sadomasochistic novel, is an Indian raga-infused wall of noise produced with detuned guitars and viola and overlaid with a haunting funeral procession style drumbeat.

FUNKADELIC | Free your mind and your ass will follow (1970)

George Clinton takes you on one whacked out trip through space with this track from the eponymous LP which, according to Clinton, was made with the intention of finding out ‘if we can cut a whole album while we're all tripping on acid’. This mind-blowing ten minute masterpiece is laden with religious subversion and offers up some blinding Hendrix-esque guitar freak outs and feedback control courtesy of Eddie Hazel. You can hear the funk being born.

ANNIE COLLIGNE

Armed with an old 6 x 6 film camera, Annie Colligne is a rising talent making a distinctive and strikingly colourful mark on portraiture photography with her highly saturated images. Born and raised in London and currently Brooklyn-based, Central St Martin’s alumnus Annie has photographed the likes of Charlie Le Mindu, Surfjan Stevens and the late Sebastian Horsley. With an ever-expanding portfolio of images that are imbued with tragicomic mood, her unique and alternative approach to portraiture lies in her ability to juxtapose cheerful vibrancy with unsettling peculiarity.

Unlike traditional portraiture photography, Annie’s subjects are often embellished, even camouflaged by dominant patterns, textures and fabrics. The rapport between subject and object is explored heavily throughout her work; her ‘Linda’ series in particular, contrasts comical adornments with the dark and unusual appearance of her subject, actress Linda Leven. Annie continues to push the boundaries of portraiture in her ‘Project with Sarah May’, a collaboration which sees said set designer shrouded from head to toe in striking fabrics. I caught up with Annie to ask a few questions about her practice.

What inspires your photography?

Annie Colligne: Found photography, going to junk shops, flea markets and pound shops or dollar stores.

What took you to America?

AC: When I turned 28 I suddenly had a bit of a life crisis. I felt like I needed to be somewhere else other than London (I grew up there) and before I knew it I was completely on my own in New York, living in a very strange women's hostel on the upper west side. Initially, I was only meant to spend 3 months here, but I just loved it (NY not the hostel) and didn't want to come back. I am lucky as my mum is American so I have a passport which makes life a lot easier. I just love walking around the city; there is so much to ogle at and so many interesting conversations to eavesdrop on. I find it a lot easier to photograph people here too; people don't question what your motive is, they are just happy you are interested in them.

Are there any recurrent themes in your work?

AC: Yes definitely. An obvious one is colour: I love the contrast of intense colour with a slightly off, sombre atmosphere. I'm also very into costume and general body adornment; I really like objects that interact with the body. I like my photographs to have a bit of mystery to them too: that is always what I find interesting in other people's pictures.

At what age did you pick up a camera?

AC: I probably started taking pictures properly when I was about 17. My dad was quite into photography so he bought me a developing tank. At first I was more into the process of developing, but then I realised I also liked composing pictures. After that there was no turning back: I knew pretty much straight away that I wanted to be a photographer.

Who is Linda Leven and what does she do?

AC: I met Linda in the street in New York; I had just moved here and was looking for a project. I was walking down 5th Avenue and there she was, wearing a gold leather jacket and a Jackie O headscarf. I asked her if I could take her picture there and then, and she said if I wanted to take any more she was up for it and that's where is all began! Linda used to be a ballet dancer but spent most of her life working for IBM. Now she does a bit of acting and modelling for artists; she and her boyfriend really enjoy photography and do shoots together on the weekends for fun. I just love her slightly gothic look contrasted with the bright colours she wears.

What’s your cure for a creative block?

AC: I think a cure for creative block is to at least start something, even if it's a bit half-arsed — you never know what it might turn into.

In your opinion, what is more important in photography, technical-training or a creative eye?

AC: I think having a creative eye is way more important than technical training. There are so many photographers now and with digital lots of people's work is starting to look the same. You really need a creative eye to make a photograph your own. It's not like being an illustrator, you can't just draw something in, you are dealing with real objects and people and making others see them how you do is a difficult task. Having said that, it is handy to be technical as it can open up new ways of working.

Are you working on any projects currently?

AC: I am discussing a little portrait project with Julie Verhoeven that I might shoot in the next couple of weeks: I want to photograph her and her surrounding as I think she is amazing. I'm also working on a little still-life side project involving some old human hair I bought in a junk shop and I want to continue taking pictures of Linda as I hope to make a book out of them at some point.

http://www.collinge.com/

THE DEATH OF THE AMERICAN DREAM

America is a land of black and white, or as Leonard Cohen once accurately wrote, “the cradle of the best and the worst”. A discordant melting pot of extreme ignorance (source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJuNgBkloFE, electing George Bush as president, and subsequently re-electing him) and pioneering intelligence (Microsoft, Apple and the advent of the internet), of infinite wealth and shocking poverty, whose landscape encompasses beaches, dusty deserts, rocky mountains and snow tipped glaciers. This is a land where Seinfeld and My Sweet Sixteen co-exist, a land that cultivated Woody Allen, Brian Wilson and conversely, the Backstreet Boys. A supreme power with a finger in every pie; it is often said that America rules the world. But is that all about to change? This is a brief tale of the rise and fall of the American Dream.

Free from the royalty and the class hierarchy that ruled over the ancient civilizations of its European colonisers, America was a nation built on ideals that sounded sweet; ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness!’ declared the founding fathers. What was initially a revolutionary democratic concept that had the individual’s best interests at heart has been subject to severe corruption over the centuries, leading to a tragic love affair with liberalism that spawned the century of the self and introduced free market capitalism that caused the downfall of America. It’s little wonder the self became sacrosanct in the U.S given the discourse of individualism that was touted endlessly at the public after the Great Depression and the World Wars. “Rugged individualism” was President Hoover’s favourite expression during his time in office, and boy, oh boy did he use it like it was going out of fashion. Then along came Ayn Rand; whose extreme pro-capitalism, anti-altruism philosophies heavily influenced post-war politics. But the most effective method of cementing individualism and liberalism came in the 1950’s when the corporate machine spied the perfect opportunity to cash in on mans quest for happiness; the American Dream. The American Dream in its original essence was honest; it promoted the idea that man was born free and that with hard work, success and opportunity would come to him regardless of social class or circumstances of birth. The latter-day, degenerate version has an ethos along the lines of ‘man is born to buy’. Founded on seductive consumer capitalism and a whole lotta debt, it promised every man material plenty and allowed him to live like a king. Millions across the USA were able to lay their claim on a slice of this bourgeois dream.

I’ve often thought that the American Dream is summed up perfectly in the opening sequence of David Lynch’s Blue Velvet: the sun shines over a safe, sleepy, middle-class neighbourhood, where white picket fences line neat lawns, the roses are damn well-pruned and the only sound to be heard is the gentle buzz of garden sprinklers. Everything is idealistic and idyllic, until Jeffrey’s father has a stroke; this is where the dream ends and America wakes up. This is what is happening right across those 50-states, right now. Waking up from the American Dream was never going to be easy; as George Carlin once put it, "it's called the American dream because you have to be asleep to believe it." The dream was an illusion, as all dreams are. Never in anyway viable; it was an abstract concept built on borrowing and debt and fuelled by greed and exploitation that ended in economic collapse. As millions lose their jobs and standards of living decline, people want answers and scapegoats. The answers lie closer to home than most Americans would think.

It’s no secret that the USA is living in an all-consuming age of avarice; vanity and materialism are rife and greed can be visually measured by the obesity epidemic that affects two-thirds of its population. The average U.S citizen has interpreted the American Dream as a god-given right, has absolutely no sense of responsibility, and spends his life in a self-righteous, ignorant, idealized bubble, waking up to a bowl of diabetes-inducing Captain Crunch and falling asleep to Fox. Meanwhile, moral tensions grow greater every day over how just 4.5% of the world's population can annually consume 20% of its energy, clock up 251 million tons of trash and recycle a meagre 28%.

Egotism is a strong word, it implies placing oneself at the centre of one’s universe, it implies no concern for others, and it is rather well-suited to the majority of American citizens, and to America as a collective. The nation’s desire for hegemony is well known, as are the countless pretexts they have given for it; war in the name of ‘benevolent imperialism’, in the name of spreading their democracy, in the name of human rights… says the country that still enforces capital punishment. We all know this faux-philanthropy has its real origins in OIL, authority and the interests of the nation. The statistics show that the outlook for America is bleak; with a debt size unprecedented in its history, ($9,988,826,849,315 as I write), an unemployment rate of 9.1% and no plan in place for getting its public finances under control, you do the math[s]. Even if the American economy stabilises and begins to grow once more, without a change of ethics there is no bright future; America NEEDS to forgo its ego.

That’s all folks.