FAR EAST FAMILY BAND - PARALLEL WORLD

MU land 1976

01. Metempsychosis
02. Entering /Times
03. Kokoro
04. Parallel World (Amanezcan/Origin/Zen/Reality/New Lights/In the Year 2000)


Despite what Julian Cope says, the music of Fumio Miyashita's Far East Family Band always left me a little cold. The first album, "Nihonjin", had a nice hippie commune folk feel (then known as Far Out) but the next record "The Cave Down To Earth" was just too Moody Blues. Bland ballads on the wrong side of prog.

However, something interesting happened when German record label Vertigo requested that electronic pioneer and kosmiche hero Klaus Schultze oversee a German only L.P. using pre-released material. Schultze had heard "Nihonjin" and was interested in producing the band.

"Nipponjin" was an interesting remix/re-imagining of the first two records. Essentially guitars and vocals were turned down (or in some cases, off) and the synths and drums pushed up. Still not amazing but it foreshadowed what came next...

In November 1975 producer and band met up in the Virgin owned Manor Studios in England to begin work on "Parallel World". Abandoning the carefully constructed ballads of the past, Schultze orchestrated the band through drawn out electronic space music. There are 'songs' but this is essentially two half hour long pieces of music. Cosmic synth and percussion epics stretching far out into the ether with minimal but effective guitars and vocals. 

A wonderfully natural hybrid of German and Japanese space music.

Far out, epic and mind blowing.

VARIOUS ARTISTS - LAMMAS NIGHT LAMENTS VOLUME 01

01. Paul Giovanni & Magnet - The Wicker Man (Main Theme)
02. Anne Briggs - Standing On Your Shore
03. C.O.B. - Spirit Of Love
04. Water Into Wine Band - Waiting For Another Day
05. Forest - Bluebell Dance
06. Dulcimer - Caravan
07. The Trees - Garden Of Jane Delawney
08. Tir Na Nog - Time Is Like a Promise
09. Dr Strangely Strange - Frosty Morning
10. Midwinter - Waters Of Sweet Sorrow
11. Stone Angel - The Bells Of Dunwich
12. Third Ear Band - Fleance
13. Vashti Bunyan - Rainbow River
14. Tea And Symphony - Winter
15. The Sun Also Rises - Tales Of Jasmine & Suicide
16. Mark Fry - The Witch
17. Pearls Before Swine - Images Of April


This is the first in a series of CDR albums compiled by Mark Coyle through the now defunct website The Unbroken Circle. Something of an underground cult, finding information on these compilations (including original release dates) is difficult. They pop up on blogs from time to time but they found their original audience through collecting and trading.

If you are familiar with acid / psychedelic folk you will no doubt be familiar with many of the artists here. Or, if you're like my friend Marc, you will own all of them. However, even for those well versed in the wyrd, these are outstanding compilations. Each one should hopefully throw up a couple of unknown jams for you. It's here that I discovered one of my favourite artists, Mark Fry.

Dry your mushrooms, polish the maypole, sit back and psyche.

DARK - ROUND THE EDGES

SIS Records 1972

01. Darkside
02. Maypole
03. Live For Today
04. R.C.8.
05. The Cat
06. Zero Time


Absolute top class heavy UK psychedelic rock. Don't let 'UK', 'rock' and '1972' put you off. Yes, there is a bit of Led Zeppelin going on here, but there is none of the sludginess and wanky twaddle that dominate so many other records given similar genre tags from this era.

Every track gets the song structure (words, chorus, melody) out of the way fast to get down to some of the best psych you will hear. And... this record contains probably the BEST fuzz guitar sound ever.

Self financed and released, limited to 60 copies on initial pressing.

Groovy as fuck.