Iron Butterfly - Are You Happy

 #Iron Butterfly #psychedelic rock #acid rock #hard rock #heavy psych #proto-prog #1960s

Reverend Lovejoy: And now, please rise for our opening hymn, uh... "In the Garden of Eden," by I. Ron Butterfly.

Homer Simpson: Hey, Marge, remember when we used to make out to this hymn?

Iron Butterfly were a psychedelic rock band and a major influence on heavy metal. They are well known for "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida", the title track of their second album. The 17 minute long piece was epic, menacing and altogether awesome, and has since become a staple of numerous pop culture references thereafter. Oh yeah, and they did some other songs, too.

From: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Music/IronButterflyBand

 
It started out as a slurred lyric misheard by a bandmate and morphed into one of the signature songs of the psychedelic era. Iron Butterfly’s 17-minute “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” took root in the American consciousness on its release in 1968 and went on to enjoy an afterlife that spanned rock, disco and hip-hop. As The Simpsons episode where Bart tricks the church organist into playing the song shows, unexpected things can happen when you play around in the “garden of Eden”.
Iron Butterfly always wanted to do things differently. The Los Angeles quartet gave equal weight to organ, guitar, drums and bass, with no frontman, had little of the blues heritage of their peers and, as their name suggests, wanted to convey both light and heavy moods. “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” drew on Missa Luba - percussive renditions of the Latin Mass from the Democratic Republic of Congo - for the lengthy drum solos that would help make the song famous, while the organ arpeggios in the intro nod to Bach’s melodramatic Toccata and Fugue in D Minor.  From: https://ig.ft.com/life-of-a-song/in-a-gadda.html

The Wyld Olde Souls - The Sun God

 #The Wyld Olde Souls #folk rock #psychedelic folk #acid folk #retro-1960s

From New York City, The Wyld Olde Souls are a female-fronted psychedelic folk rock band who mesh medieval and Indian music, creating an other-worldly sound that's all their own. With influences from Fairport Convention to Jefferson Airplane to Loreena McKennitt, The Wyld Olde Souls have been called "mysterious," "bewitching," "classy," "magical," and "transcendent." 10 years in the making, they released their highly anticipated, full-length album 'Ensoulment' in May 2011. Their 6-song debut 'Poems From the Astral Plane' gained cult status among European collectors of the femme folk psych genre. In addition to fervent reviews from abroad, the album is endorsed by Tom Rapp, founder of legendary '60s psychedelic folk band Pearls Before Swine, who said, “It's good to see that someone is still exploring folk and psychedelia and doing it so well.”  From: https://www.facebook.com/The-Wyld-Olde-Souls-275536312708/ 

Sam & Dave - May I Baby

 #Sam & Dave #Sam Moore & Dave Prater #soul #R&B #Southern soul #Atlantic/Stax #Double Dynamite #The Sultans of Sweat #1960s

Sam Moore and Dave Prater made for one of the most successful Soul acts of the 1960s, racking up a string of hard-grooving hits with a tag-team vocal style that owed a debt to the church music both men had grown up singing. Solo performers at the outset, the two southerners - Moore from Florida, Prater from Georgia - formed a duo in 1961, after meeting at a club in Miami. After bouncing between various labels and issuing a series of singles that received regional airplay but failed to ignite, the pair’s moment came when they were signed by Jerry Wexler of Atlantic Records in 1964, and Wexler sent them to Stax Records in Memphis, to record with the writing and production team of Isaac Hayes and David Porter. In addition to supplying them with songs and pairing them with house band Booker T. and the M.Gs (as well as the Stax horn section, the Mar-Keys), Hayes loosened up the singers’ straight R&B approach, bringing to the fore a wilder, call-and-response style derived from Gospel music.  From: https://teachrock.org/people/sam-and-dave/

22 Brides - Demolition Day

 #22 Brides #Libby & Carrie Johnson #folk rock #alternative folk #alternative rock #indie rock #folk pop #blues folk #1990s

In 1992, Libby and Carrie Johnson formed the indie folk duo 22 Brides, and in 1993 they put out the self-released eight-song CD Selling Fruit in Cairo. The band name 22 Brides comes from an Indian folk tale they heard when they were younger. After being spotted during one of their monthly gigs at CBGBs in New York, the duo signed with indie label Zero Hour Records. In June 1994 they released their self-titled debut, consisting of remixed songs from their self-released effort plus four new songs. The album was produced by Daniel Wise and features Jonathan Mover on drums and Mark Bosch on guitar.
On the year-long tour for 22 Brides, and in advance of their second album, Beaker, 22 Brides expanded into a four-member band with John Skehan (guitar, bass) and Ned Stroh (drums) joining Libby (bass, keyboards, vocals) and Carrie (guitar, vocals). The album had a more highly produced feel than the folk influences of the band's debut. Following a Zero Hour distribution deal with Universal Records, Beaker was released on Zero Hour/Universal. In September 1997, Zero Hour released the 22 Brides EP Blazes of Light, which was a sampler of sorts, with songs from their first two albums, "Purified" from their upcoming third album, and a cover of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah".
The band's third LP, Demolition Day, was released in 1998, with a return to the more intimate sound of 22 Brides. In an effort to get back to their folk-pop harmonizing roots, the band worked again with Daniel Wise and recorded their vocal tracks live and switched to a trio formation, with Libby on bass and vocals, Carrie on guitar and vocals, and Bill Dobrow on drums. In October 1995, 22 Brides toured with Dick Dale. They played at the 1998 Lilith Fair, and also opened for Ani DiFranco and Freedy Johnston. In 1996, Joe Quesada and Jimmy Palmiotti introduced characters based on Libby and Carrie Johnson in their comic book series Ash. They then created a four-book miniseries, 22 Brides, published by Event Comics, revolving around the characters based on the sisters.  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libby_Johnson
 

Church of the Cosmic Skull - Cold Sweat

 #Church of the Cosmic Skull #progressive rock #psychedelic rock #progressive pop #occult rock #retro-1970s #music video

As the real world turns to a desert of ash and rust, a light appears on the horizon. From above the clouds comes a path to the Cosmic Compound. The Gate is open to all who observe the 7 Objects:

Recognise the Hallucinatory Nature of Reality

Investigate All Aspects of the Reality-Hallucination

Receive All Phenomena with Equanimity

Celebrate and Uphold the Freedom of Art, Science and Thought

Meet Mistakes with Forgiveness and Determination

Do What You Want, With Love in Your Heart

Maintain Focus on the Unity of All Living Beings

From: https://cosmicskull.org/

Church of the Cosmic Skull are a British rock band from Nottingham. The group was formed by guitarist, singer and songwriter Bill Fisher in 2016. The group members had previously played in various bands in and around Nottingham, and a number of early songs had been written years before while in other bands. Fisher was interested in progressive pop as much as progressive rock, and wanted the band to be primarily about good songwriting rather than technical expertise. His influences include Queen, The Beatles, Thin Lizzy, Kate Bush, David Bowie and Peter Gabriel. The instrumentation makes prominent use of the Hammond organ, piano and strings, and multiple vocal harmonies.  From: https://www.last.fm/music/Church+of+the+Cosmic+Skull/+wiki

Jesus on Heroine - Ardhanarishvara

 #Jesus on Heroine #psychedelic rock #shoegaze #noise rock #garage rock #drone #Danish #animated music video 

One of the most exciting new bands we’ve come across this year is unquestionably Jesus On Heroine. Two months ago, they blew our minds with “Musasabi,” which was a monumental, psychedelic experience. It is also a candidate for song of the year, but the same argument could be made for their latest single. If you’ve bathed under a waterfall, you will know the exhilaration that overcomes you as the refreshing stream splashes on your head while the warm sun beams on your body. This same sensation is experienced on “Ardhanarishvara.” There isn’t a single element that stands out, but instead the psychedelic guitars, the dabbling of the ivory keys, the throbbing bass line, and the stuttering drums cascade together like a refreshing wave of sound. The harmonies are majestic, bursting like a congregation worshiping its gods. “Ardhanarishvara” is another tremendous tune from a band that we will start worshiping as of today. For what it’s worth, Ardhanarishvara is the androgynous form of the Hindu god Shiva and his consort, Parvati, so maybe we are chanting to a god. If you are interested, the video for the song is a must-see for its eye-popping animation.  From: https://therevue.ca/2017/06/29/the-matinee-june-29th-2/

Kristeen Young - Nice

 #Kristeen Young #alternative rock #piano rock #avant-garde #prog punk #operatic punk #multi-genre #no-genre #music video

Missouri-born singer-songwriter Kristeen Young has been producing her unique cocktail of ‘dissonant piano bashing, operatic vocals and serrated lyrics’ since her debut album Meet Miss Young And Her All Boy Band in 1997. She has toured and worked with artists such as Morrissey and David Bowie. Kristeen Young is the rarest of beasts - a musician on their 11th album who still sounds, and looks, like they are fresh out of the gate, with all the vitality, energy and innovation that suggests. An artist brimming with ideas and idiosyncrasies, laser-focused on living in the here and now. In a world where pop-culture, aimed at even the youngest demographic, is awash with nostalgia this a musical unicorn indeed.
Backed by a series of arresting, self-made videos, The Beauty Shop was released digitally last month with a physical edition to follow in September. It is a fabulously rage-infused genre-mash of left field punk opera, discordant instrumentation and sublime melodies that isn’t afraid to touch on the darker aspects of personal and political life. Written as a song cycle detailing “snapshots of the life of a serial killer with each song based on a major emotion” the album, Kristeen says, is a metaphor for contemporary American culture exploring “how life can systematically kill your emotions”. More personally, and evocatively, the touchstone for the album was a real life salon: “I grew up in a beauty shop. My adopted mom had a shop in our little house. My adopted dad walled in a breezeway to make the shop.”
The title evokes a ’50s/’60s retro feel, somewhere between Little Shop of Horrors and Beauty School Drop Out, that connects with the fucked-up version of old school glamour on display in the visuals. There is a conflict present in the videos that many women can relate to, as they appear to pick apart our own sense of image from the commercialized product of femininity and female adornment.  From: https://louderthanwar.com/kristeen-young-interview/