Black Moth Super Rainbow - Dandelion Gum (2007)

Have you ever wondered what it would sound like if you gave a robot a lot of LSD?

Hopefully I'm not the only person thinking this. But just in case you were thinking this, here's the perfect album for a lysergically-induced cyborg freakout session.

This record is right up there with Animal Collective's Merriweather Post Pavilion, Panda Bear's Person Pitch and Dungen's Ta Det Lugnt for post-millennium psychedelia.

Enjoy!

Black Moth Super Rainbow - Dandelion Gum (Graveface Record; 2007)

Yeasayer - Live at Ancienne Belgique (2010)

Holy shit this is so good. If you haven't hopped on the Yeasayer bandwagon yet, stop fucking around and get on it. Seriously. Not only are they one of the most interesting bands of the last few years in terms of experimenting with sound, they're also one of the most listenable (I know that word "experimenting" can be a huge turn-off for ears, but trust me- totally accessible).

The sound quality of this show is pretty amazing and the fans are respectful and attentive as well. 

Here's some live Yeasayer- check out some of the re-worked versions of the songs from both All Hour Cymbals and Odd Blood.

Yeasayer - Live at Ancienne Belgique (2010; self-released)

Silver Apples - Silver Apples (1968)

New York City's Silver Apples were way ahead of their time. I've said this about a ton of bands (especially here in print) but these guys were doing what Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream and Cluster were doing five years later and they were considered groundbreaking. Think about that.

They only released two albums before calling it quits; and here is their 1968 self-titled debut- heralded as an electronic breakthrough, with lead Apple Simeon Coxe's hand-built oscillating synthesizer (the eponymously named Simeon, with its 9 oscillators and 86 knobs) as the main instrument and Danny Taylor's polyrhythmic, tight-as-a-tick drumming, the Silver Apples created some of the most interesting electronic-based experimental psychedelic pop music at the same time The Beatles were making The White Album and The Velvet Underground were making their third record. Think about that.

Think about a lot of things, but think mostly about clicking the link under the album cover...

Silver Apples - Silver Apples (1968; Kapp Records)

Les Yper-Sound - Too Fortiche (1967)

Pierre Henry and Michel Colombier set out to create music for a choreographer friend of theirs (Maurice Béjart) for an experimental ballet performance called Messe pour le temps présent in 1967. The most famous track from these recording sessions produced the song Psyché Rock- which we'd all hear eventually, being used as the title theme song from the TV show Futurama. Les Yper-Sound would also grace the name of a Stereolab track from their Emperor Tomato Ketchup album, so they're no stranger to pop culture references.

What makes this so interesting is the sound effects that Henry added to Colombier's composition- Henry had worked extensively with musique concrète, pioneering the genre in the late 1940's and early 50's with Pierre Schaffer in his Club d'Essai studio at the ORTF (Office de Radiodiffusion Télévision Française), producing musique concrète "noises" as well as some of the first electronic sounds to be used in films and TV shows.

Upon first listen, the songs on Too Fortiche sound extremely dated, but realizing that the space-age sounds were made on such primitive equipment it sounds wonderfully experimental and... groovy.

Les Yper-Sound - Too Fortiche (1967; Fontana Records)
-link opens to YouTube-

Lee Hazlewood - Cowboy In Sweden (1970)

You can take Lee Hazlewood's music on two different levels: one; he was a hilarious jokester that wrote tongue-in-cheek pop and country songs or the second tact, which was he saw himself as a serious musician that was completely misunderstood, even now. I'd like to think he's somewhere in between the two, bridging the gap between ridiculous camp and true art.

Cowboy In Sweden was a television series from Sweden that Hazlewood starred in and wrote the soundtrack to. It's an attempt at reconciling the psychedelic sounds of the day with Bakersfield-style country and string-laden commercial pop music; the results are what would happen if a cowboy took LSD and appeared on The Lawrence Welk Show.

It's that awesome...

Lee Hazlewood - Cowboy In Sweden (1970; LHI Records)

Dungen - Ta Det Lugnt (2004)

Swedish-born Gustav Ejstes is the one man band behind Dungen (pronounced doon-yen) and I gotta say that when I first heard this album a few years ago, I remember thinking "there's no way this isn't from 1973..."

Well, I was wrong; Ta Det Lugnt ("take it easy") was recorded in 2003 on vintage instruments; almost entirely by Ejstes himself, (ironically using computer software like Cubase for the recording and mastering).

It's a psych-pop-rock masterpiece of the early millennium.

Dungen - Ta Det Lugnt (2004; Subliminal Sounds)