Beauregard Ajax
Deaf Priscilla

Here we go, guys, I pull from the trash can of history another gem of immense value, the Beauregard Ajax. Formed in 1966 in Southern California, specifically in Los Angeles, these five magnificent musicians, authors of a series of psychedelic works, disbanded before releasing their first and only album "Deaf Priscilla" in 1968, and it was presented comprehensively (aside from a few singles already circulating at the time) to the general public only in 2006 by the German label Shadoks with the addition of 4 bonus tracks.

"Deaf Priscilla", a very coherent album as a whole, presents a series of tracks (all in song style about 3-4 minutes), of beautiful acid-pop watercolors crafted with great technical skill, diverse in sound and arrangements, achievable only by lucid and gifted musicians. The album is an alchemy of perfectly matched sound effects, melodies, and harmonies, connected by a stylistic thread that never declines, and all tracks of high quality maintain a constant emotional tension. The musical mix of west coast-pop is influenced by the British invasion (the pioneering one of Tomorrow, Yardbirds, Blossom Toes, Pretty Things, and also Syd-Floyd) for a crafted product of effectual experimentalism rich in nuances and complex stylistic references ranging from blues phrases to acid-Byrds ballads, to lament-garage constructs.

Its leader David Ferguson (vocals and guitar), a fallen angel, with an apparently harmless voice, accompanied by ironically flattering choruses, gives voice to surreal and twisted lyrics, inspired more by the existential inadequacy of living in the big metropolis (more than by the peace and love fantasies of Californian social-hippies, it's the metropolitan anxieties à la Lou Reed and Velvet Underground primarily; it seems our guy also came from New York), themes like alienation, desolation, melancholy, nostalgia for impossible loves, loneliness, degraded sex, drugs, and death accompany a highly original musical flow. The moderately distorted guitars are equipped with effects typical of early psychedelia, fuzz-auto reverse-tremolo (Love, 13th Floor Elevator, Chocolate Watch Band).

In short, the Beauregard Ajax also embody the essence of an era straddling the Dionysian hedonism of the profusion of lysergic colors and sounds and the conscious and nihilistic expressionism due to the dissolution of the illusions and hopes that living in the big city entails (New York before all other places initiated a "new consciousness" of despair). Dialectical dichotomy or synthesis, lifestyle and way of thinking that transforms and coagulates into a great musical formalization of these five extraordinary forgotten musicians, but with them everything holds; even existential suffering (perceptible only in the lyrics) becomes beauty, aesthetic pretext.

Fourteen original and highly interesting tracks aimed primarily at acid-psych aficionados, among which the poignant "Goodbye Again" stands out, and some of you may find it adjacent to something intimate and personal and as an input to "involuntary memory," through it, you might "travel." In my opinion, we are once again facing an absolute masterpiece of the "genre", for this reason, I rate it 5 (in the category of unknown works) without a shadow of a doubt, and for me, bringing "Deaf Priscilla" to your attention is a matter of great satisfaction.

Justice is done!!!