RE-UP: The Battlemen - Call To Arms (LP mono version) (USA 2008)

 

RE-UP BY REQUEST.

Described to me as 'Psychedelic medieval rock' by JoDee Purkeypile (who is also a member of PLANET RYE CO). 'Call to Arms' by THE BATTLEMEN comes along as a great psychedelic garage album with surprising lyrics and themes, musically clearly rooted in mid/late-60ies psych-garage-punk and pop-psyke.

"The Battlemen are the electric minstrels of Bastrop, Texas. Forging a unique sound comprising garage rock, folk, blues, & jazz, the group released their debut album on Emerald Wood in December 2008. Among it's musical joys are the underground hit single "Psychedelic Moat", the fire-side gem "Fire Axe", the ridiculous romp of "Gigantic Spider", and the epic oddity "Demon in the Queen's Court". The band has yet to perform live in concert, but a show has been arranged for August, 2009. Visit the Battlemen on Myspace at: http://www.myspace.com/thebattlemen for further details. Until then enjoy the mono magic of CALL TO ARMS..."

 

'Psychedelic medieval rock'? ... aahm, wait a minute!

But then, why not? Remember THE PRETTY THINGS' psych masterpiece from 1968? Those guys were singing about burning balloons and Privates in a strange turn of the century war... So why not an album full of riding knights, magic axes, demons and witches? And what an album it is! At least some of these 11 songs should be on every psych head's play list.

Recommended (not only to fans of THE DUKES OF STRATOSPHEAR, NUGGETS, RUBBLE and the like)!

Favourite tracks: 'Witch of Colors' and 'Oubliette Blues'

The Battlemen - Call To Arms

(LP mono version) (USA 2008)

(MP3-ZIP, 11 tracks, 29 min, front cover incl., 65,3 MB)

Get it here (new link 2023-09)!

Anyone's Dreamcolour – Acid Daze FILM (Stoned Hippie Sing-along Version)(1992/New edit 2023)

 

1. Acid Daze - Part I: Trip No. 5 Into Inner Space (11.17)
a) 00.00: A Dream In Green (3.02)
b) 03.02: No Difference (1.41)
c) 04.43: Creation (0.51)
d) 05.34: Breathing In The Beginning (0.33)
e) 06.09: Space (5.10)

2. Acid Daze - Part II: March To The Center Of The Brain (16.01)
a) 11.17: Out Of Time (3.07)
b) 14.24: You Can Be Anyone This Time Around (1.09)
c) 15.33: Acid Reign (0.43)
d) 16.16: Optical Promise (2.18)
e) 18.34: Look Inside That Head (8.44)
{TOTAL TIME: 27.18}  

All tracks recorded at Wormser Straße, Mainz, Germany, on 4 track analog, 1991/92. Drums on "No Difference" by Herbert Angermann. All other instruments and voices/noises by Mike S.

1. ACID DAZE - Part I: Trip No. 5 Into Inner Space

a) A DREAM IN GREEN
Forever and ever and ever
a dream in green green green
Forever and ever, ever
a dream in greeeeeeeen

Under the shower - uoooooh
Forever and ever and ever
a dream in green green green
Forever and ever, ever
a dream in green green green

b) (IT MAKES) NO DIFFERENCE
It's a strange world
we can get killed
anytime
by electrical monks

Words always lie
come too soon or too late
better say nuthin'
leave it to fate

I don't mind -'cause I know
It makes no difference anyway
I don't mind, if you treat me unkind
It makes no difference anyway
    (It makes no difference!)

c) CREATION
To create and to create
gives the feeling to be God
To create!

d) BREATHING IN THE BEGINNING
Everything's like breathing
in the beginning of a new style
To be devine or be denied
To be devine or be denied


2. ACID DAYS - Part II: March To The Center Of the Brain

a) OUT OF TIME
Sitting 'round, I'm waiting
Confronted again with death in my dreams
Numb brain
The fear of goin' insane
And still out of time
o u t  o f  t i m e!

b) YOU CAN BE ANYONE THIS TIME AROUND
And I know
you can be anyone this time around
Once in your life you got to decide
The art of life is to do it all in time
To love and hate
and to destroy
Every word already said
Every thought already thought
And I know
It's what I am...
 
c) ACID REIGN
Too much acid
too little head
A little smile in a while
instead
Words are forming
they disappear

d) OPTICAL PROMISE
Too much energy, I believe

Optical promise

A girl in a mirror with long blond hair
Avoid to stare

Passing the time
I'm quite afraid of anything
But India's calling
Delhi Blues
Bombay, Goa
Walking Blues!

This is a true "psychedelic" recording in its literal sense. And probably the most "far out" musical work of the one-man-home-recording-project ANYONE'S DREAMCOLOUR. One improvised guitar track was recorded, while under the influence of some psychedelic substance, and later, over the next few weeks/months three more tracks were overdubbed with various guitars, voices, drums and other sounds – trying to resemble the different moods of a psychedelic experience. The result is – not surprising – an unnerving, often disturbing bizarre listening adventure. This for sure isn't straight rock music! Rather a kind of a rough soundscape, giving one the opportunity to witness an inner space travel. Some tracks, like for example Out of Time, are heavily disjointed, resembling quite effectively the affect of psychedelic substances. 

No Difference was (in a more rock oriented version/arrangement) later played live by CLOUD NINE (and ORANGE) and also recorded.
Be warned! This recording is surely something of an acquired taste. Different sounds for different people...
Should be listened to in the dark on headphones!
The Acid Daze film was based on the Super 8 film Colours - Death of The Mind, which was shown as a background integrated into the light show at CLOUD NINE & THE VITAMIN C performances.
The original film was repeatedly re-cut and extended until it was digitised and spiced up with new sequences in March 2023. This is definitely the final version.

Dies ist eine "psychedelische" Tonaufnahme im wahrsten Sinne des Wortes. Und wahrscheinlich das "abgefahrenste" musikalische Werk des Ein-Mann-Home-Recording-Projekts ANYONE'S DREAMCOLOUR. Ein improvisierter Gitarrentrack wurde aufgenommen, während der Solokünstler unter dem Einfluss einer psychedelischen Substanz stand, und später, im Laufe der darauffolgenden Wochen/Monate, wurden drei weitere Tonspuren mit verschiedenen Gitarren, Stimmen, Schlagzeug und anderen Klängen eingespielt – in dem Versuch, die verschiedenen Stimmungen einer psychedelischen Erfahrung darzustellen. Das Ergebnis ist – wenig überraschend – ein oft anstrengendes, verstörendes, bizarres Hörerlebnis. Dies ist mit Sicherheit keine Rockmusik im eigentlichen Sinn! Vielmehr handelt es sich um eine Art Klanglandschaft, die einem die Möglichkeit gibt, Zeuge einer inneren Weltraumfahrt zu werden. Einige Tracks, wie z. B. Out of Time, sind wie in verschiedenen Zeitschichten seltsam verschoben und veranschaulichen dadurch sehr effektiv die Wirkung psychedelischer Substanzen.
No Difference wurde (in einer rockigeren Version/mit einem anderen Arrangement) später von CLOUD NINE (und auch der Frankfurter Band ORANGE) live gespielt und ebenfalls aufgenommen.
Warnung! Diese Aufnahmen sind sicherlich nichts für den Mainstream-Hörer! Sollte im Dunkeln mit Kopfhörern angehört werden!
Als Grundlage für den Acid Daze-Film diente der Super-8-Film Colours – Death of The Mind, der bei CLOUD NINE & THE VITAMIN C-Auftritten in die Lightshow integriert als Hintergrund gezeigt wurde.
Der ursprüngliche Film wurde immer wieder umgeschnitten und erweitert, bis er im März 2023 digitalisiert und mit neuen Sequenzen aufgepeppt wurde. Dies ist definitiv die finale Fassung.

 Anyone's Dreamcolour - Acid Daze (1991/92)
(mp3-zip, 3 tracks, 35 min, 49,7 MB, art + lyrics incl.)
(Get it HERE!)

Sun Waahs - Humiliani (PORTUGAL, 2023) Video

 

 

„Sun Waahs is a band from Lisbon emerged in the early 2021s. Blending Lo-fi experimentation and sonic explorations Sun Waahs's sound fuses neo-psychedelic and vintage atmospheres. Their single "Humiliani" is accompanied by the imagery of Oskar Schlemmer's "Triadic Ballet" from 1912. 

ABOUT THE BAND:
Sun Waahs sound like they have just woken up. The band from Lisbon emerged in the early 2021s. Blending Lo-fi experimentation and sonic explorations - fusing neo-psychedelic and vintage atmospheres. Reverb baking dreamy psychedelic sound on a sleepy roll of a tape machine. Mixing shoegaze and garage rock throughout each experience. Capturing their own aesthetic by echoing the synergies with vintage and modern sounds. Hard to explain - better to listen.“

Contact: sunwaahs.music@gmail.com
(Band-Info)

Cool music, eager to hear more! Enjoy!

Waiting for the Sun, guys? Huuh? All the best to you!

Vibravoid - Colour Your Mind (GER)

Talking about German neo-psychedelic bands one should not forget to mention the one and only VIBRAVOID from Düsseldorf (of all places). Here they do a great cover version from the Australian neo psych band THE TYRNAROUND originally released in 1986. An excellent, very trippy video!

The band has been around for many many years. They started in the mid nineties, I think. And they have released quite a lot albums. Surely the longest lasting neo-psychedelic band from Germany! They play a very late sixties styled psych rock, that is very reminiscent of early PINK FLOYD or American acid-punk/garage bands like the ELECTRIC PRUNES or even STRAWBERRY ALARMCLOCK. Other influences are German early seventies bands like CAN (they also do a cover of Mother Sky) or some more modern sounds like Goa, Trance or Exotica.

 

If you want to find out more about VIBRAVOID I have good news for you. They offer some of their music for free download on their website https://stonedkarmarecords.bandcamp.com/

Strongly recommended that you check it out. My favourite at the moment is Vibrations of the Cosmic Void, but it's hard to single out any specific album because they all are quite interesting.

Some of their vinyl releases are really extraordinary and well worth buying. 

If you like their music, please support the band directly.

Enjoy their psychedelic sounds!

Velvet Attack – Hellfire (video GER 2022)

 VELVET ATTACK are a 60's based indie-rock-group from Dortmund, Germany formed in 2019 to play velvet popsike melodies boosted by freakbeat/kraut educated guitar attacks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAF_iN5MrZE&list=RDMMnAF_iN5MrZE&start_radio=1

 
 https://open.spotify.com/artist/4NzQ9MsIjFgC0OcvMgVX9y 

https://velvetattack.bandcamp.com

Single out on SOUNDFLAT RECORDS Sep/09th/2022! Taken from the album VISIONS FROM INNER SPACE / LP out on SOUNDFLAT RECORDS Oct/07th/2022.

The Vertigo Swirl - Baited Breath (USA 2009) Video

 Have  a look at this fan made video from the S/T album. (2009)

Manik Myk Thompson - Manik Digressions (USA 1991-1995) RE-UP

WOW!!! 

It's recordings like this, why I love running this blog and why I think it's worth it after all, worth all the work I put into it and time I spend on it... Because – this is what it's all about: HOMEMADE LO-FI PSYCHEDELIC ROCK MUSIC!!!
Where else would one have the opportunity to find little psych jewels like Manik Digressions by MANIK MYK THOMPSON, if not on HLFP, that is: unless you are so lucky to know that guy personally – as BRIAN ANDREW MAREK does, who compiled this brilliant song collection.

Here is a very talented guy, who just explodes with anarchic creativity and does exactly what he wants to do, records exactly the weirdness, the voices, the guitar storms and tape manupilations and whatever else – the way he likes it – lo-fi and rough and simply great...
I really love that stuff! Strongly recommended to every serious psych head!

"I heard "Manik" Myk Thompson before I met him. An ex-girlfriend of mine had a brief relationship with him shortly after ours, and it was through her that I got a copy of his 1994 cassette "Beyond Dysfunctional". His works were intriguing enough to overcome my natural aversion to an ex's new boyfriend, and I soon drafted him into my latest project, initiating an occasional working relationship and a friendship that continues to this day.

Myk also started to make me jealous in a way that has nothing to do with girls. Like me, he was making strange, funny, smart home four-track creations, but unlike me (and like another influential friend, Andrew "File 13/Full Dimensional" Aldrich), he had the drive and vision to compile entire cassettes of this material, package them and give them out to people. I just sat and hoarded mine, too unsatisfied and self-conscious to share, waiting for some undetermined day in the future when I could professionally record and release my music. For several years in the nineties, Thompson was releasing a new 60 minute album every year, and it is from these that this compilation derives.

While Myk is best known in the open mic night circle that he still haunts for laugh-out-loud folk songs of the political and observational stripe, I have intentionally eschewed this material in favor of his more esoteric efforts. Tape manipulation, samples, skewed poetry, cosmic humor and his always outrageous guitars come together to produce a sound world that is uniquely "Manik". There's even a few bona fide (if slightly left of center) songs.

Myk asked me to compile this, and I'm glad he did - it gave me the opportunity to pay tribute to the lesser known side of a talented friend. So sit back, relax and enjoy nearly eighty minutes of Mykadelia!"

(Brian Andrew Marek, who compiled this great song collection - Thanks a lot, BaM!!!)

Favourite tracks: there are many, but probably most of all: She's My Favorite Color, Crossroads, City, I Want You, Room 222, Pleasantly Confused ...

Enjoy! 

 

Manik Myk Thompson - Manik Digressions
(1991-1995)
(mp3-zip, 33 tracks, 79:53 min, 184,1 MB, artwork incl.)
Get it here! New Link 01-2022

Check out more of Manik Myk's music here:

 https://manikmykthompson.bandcamp.com/

Anyone's Dreamcolour - Acid Daze (GER., 1992) RE-POST by request

 

This is a true "psychedelic" recording in its literal sense. And probably the most "far out" musical work of the one-man-home-recording-project ANYONE'S DREAMCOLOUR. One improvised guitar track was recorded, while allegedly under the influence of some psychedelic substance, and later, over the next few weeks/months three more tracks were overdubbed with various guitars, voices, drums and other sounds – trying to resemble the different moods of a psychedelic experience. The result is – not surprising – an unnerving, often disturbing bizarre listening adventure. This for sure isn't straight rock music! Rather a kind of a rough soundscape, giving one the opportunity to witness an inner space travel. Some tracks, like for example Out of Time, are heavily disjointed, resembling quite effectively the affect of psychedelic substances.
Butterfly, which is sandwiched between the two parts of the long Acid Daze song, was recorded under similar conditions around the same time on another date. This time the rhythm guitar track was recorded live together with a drum track, more or less improvised, lyrics added later. 

No Difference was (in a more rock oriented version/arrangement) later played live by CLOUD NINE (and ORANGE) and also recorded. Butterfly also appeared for a short time in the ORANGE playlist.

Be warned! This recording is surely something of an acquired taste. But look at the name of this blog. Isn't that what it's all about? Different sounds for different people...
Should be listened to in the dark on headphones!

 Anyone's Dreamcolour - Acid Daze (1991/92)
(mp3-zip, 3 tracks, 35 min, 49,7 MB, art + lyrics incl.)
(Get it HERE!)

Anyone's Dreamcolour - It's So Cold Out Here In Space/FfM Bunker (1996/95) (GER.) RE-UP by request

ANYONE'S DREAMCOLOUR was the solo project of Mike S., bass player of CLOUD NINE (& THE VITAMIN C) (1983-1992), SISTER LUNA (1992/'93) and ORANGE (1993-'96). Lofi home recordings on 4 track exist from the years 1992 until 1999, all unreleased and only given away to friends.

 

The music of ANYONE'S DREAMCOLOUR in generell is less focused and more experimental than most of Mike's previous work with his former bands and heavily rooted in late 60s/early 70s Psychedelic Rock and experimental music. For example Girl in a Drop of water sounds somewhat like a crossing between COUNTRY JOE & THE FISH's Grace and the GRATEFUL DEAD's Rosemary, while Spacelab seems influenced by STEREOLAB and HAWKWIND.
Laughing Inside, written by P. Hergo, was a song by SISTER LUNA, that was never properly recorded; Girl in a Drop of Water was an old CLOUD NINE & THE VITAMIN C  song.
Electric Hippie Church is performed completely by Daniel P. Caesar, aka SUPER KING, Mike's band mate from ORANGE, and is based on the organ track of Eternal Hippies.
Enjoy! 

ANYONE'S DREAMCOLOUR - It's So Cold Out Here
    In Space (1996)/FfM Bunker (1995)

    1. Laughing Inside - 4.06
    2. Spacelab - 5.19
    3. Girl In A Drop Of Water - 4.25
    4. Eternal Hippies (feat. Super King) - 4.53
    5. Electric Hippie Church (performed by Super King) - 4.45
    (mp3 zip, 5 songs, 23.32 min,33,5 MB, covers incl.)
    (Get it HERE!)

Anyone's Dreamcolour - Opel Opera - Dadaistische Oper in 3 Akten (GER. 1994) REPOST

When I started this little blog here, one of the first posts was "Rosemarine", an excerpt from the LOFI- PSYCH-DADA-OPERA "OPEL OPERA - Dadaistische Oper in 3 Akten" by ANYONE'S DREAMCOLOUR, the homemade lofi psychedelic project of Mike S. (from ORANGE and earlier CLOUD NINE & THE VITAMIN C – two bands most of the regular blog readers here will probably know by now). Postings of "IT'S SO COLD OUT HERE IN SPACE" (1996) and "ACID DAZE" (1992) followed recently. Today it's time for ANYONE'S DREAMCOLOUR's third major work.

So now here it is: the complete thing in all its glorious lofi madness. What you get to hear (that is: if you dare) is a strange sound collage of various styles, ranging from spacy blues rock to hard rock snippets, experimental kraut psychedelia mixed with typewriter and radio noises, dog snarling and saxophone improvisations. There also is a theme ("Opel Opera Main Theme") that is repeated in different variations (reminding of ZAPPA's "Uncle Meat" concept), one time for example played as a pseudo reggae (Jamacian Opel") and another time in a mean grunge parody, DINOSAUR-JR.-style ("Dinosaur Opel").
This "Opera music" uses indeed all kind of different sounds, often in collage format, using every usable source imaginable. The lyrics are a mix of bad english, german and sheer dadaist nonsense. All songs were recorded in Mike's living room (see front cover!) on anaolog-4-track recorder in the time span of November 1992 'til June 1994.
A word about the Opera ... "concept": Go and sell back the painted Opel car ("Opel" is a well known car series built in Germany) to the factory and throw the keyboard player out of the band... (Well, make of that whatever you will...)
(In order to keep the flow of the music and to avoid unwelcome splits between tracks, I joined together some of the songfragments, when converting the audio tracks into mp3s.)

ANYONE'S DREAMCOLOUR - OPEL OPERA (Dadaistische Oper in 3 Akten) (1994)
(mp3 zip, 36 min, 16 tracks, art and lyrics incl.)
(Get it here!)