Various - Insane Times


Year of Release: 2007
Label: Zonophone/EMI
Catalog Number: 0946 396921 2 5 (ZONO 200
Format: CD
Total Time: 79:20:00

Subtitled "25 British psychedelic artyfacts from the EMI vaults" this is exactly what you get. Not all that's on offer here is at par with the likes of Kevin Ayers, July, Tomorrow, The Yardbirds and Syd Barrett, who are also present on this CD. What this album tries to do is give you an idea of what was musically happening in the sixties in Britain. Whilst George Best was chatting up girls and Twiggy did her best not to die an anorexic, practically every garage in town, every basement, had some youngsters trying to become someone in the music industry. Flower power was still around the corner, there was free sex for everyone who was interested and the first experiments with LSD resulted in some weird musical statements. Labelled as psychedelic, what happened in Britain under that moniker sounded rather different to that of their American counterparts.

British psychedelica was mainly introduced by The Beatles on their Revolver album. The idea was taken one step further on Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band whilst it all ended with The Beatles' White Album. Marijuana and LSD surely influenced the creative process, which together with liquid lights and stroboscopes made you leave for another planet. Whilst magazines such as Record Collector and specialized websites and fanzines have put forward a wide selection of artists, this Insane Times collection has delved into its archives. The result is a compilation that is not at all predictable. Instead many obscure gems have been located and given a rightful place on this 25-track compilation.

To be honest, all of the songs on this album sound dated, but then again so does the entire psychedelic movement. Not only the sound of the guitars but also the way they were handled at the time, together with the specific use of amps and mikes, led to a sound that sounds rather dated. A sound of its time, if you like. In a lot of cases ordinary pop songs were given the wahwah treatment, added a sitar, some backward recordings and spaced out vocals so they were ready to be included in this new psychedelic movement.

Insane Times contains some pleasant songs but none strong enough to deserve more recognition. These psychedelic artyfacts are a nice souvenir of a period in time where everything looked pink and smelled of roses. Today however we see that a lot of those roses were made of plastic and had no smell of their own. It's kitch in the nicest possible way.


Tracklisting:
Song For Insane Times (Kevin Ayers) / Dandelion Seeds (July) / Real Life Permanent Dream (Tomorrow) / Hold On (Ipissimus) / Strange Walking Man (Mandrake Paddle Steamer) / Towards The Skies (The Gods) / Model Village (The Penny Peeps) / The Dog Presides (Paul Jones) / Hurry Up John (The Idle Race) / Last Cloud Home (The Orange Bicycle) / Is It Love? (Jon) / Nightmares In Red (The Brain) / Equestrian Statue (Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band) / Sun Sing (Rainbow Ffolly) / Castle In The Sky (Simon Dupree & The Big Sound) / Monday Morning (Tales Of Justine) / Mr Commuter (Mike Proctor) / All The World Is Love (The Hollies) / World Of You (The Aerovons) / William Chalker's Time Machine (The Lemon Tree) / World Spinning Sadly (The Parking Lot) / Please Leave My Mind (Herbal Mixture) / Barricades (The Koobas) / Think About It (The Yardbirds) / No Good Trying (Syd Barrett)

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Discography:


Genre: Psychedelic/Space Rock

Origin UK

Added: December 10th 2007
Reviewer: John "Bobo" Bollenberg

Artist website: sidsmith.blogspot.com/2007/08/insane-times-25-brit
Hits: 2712
Language: english

  

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