It's a Beautiful Day
It's a Beautiful Day

1969. Psychedelia was already delivering its final pulses, producing the last noteworthy peaks. Soon Jimi Hendrix would pass to the other World, as would Janis Joplin, and after them also Jim Morrison. But this debut album, detached from the hallucinated standards of their compatriots the Grateful Dead, proved that some seeds were still unrooted in the upheaval that was happening. In the same year, the Jefferson Airplane created an album breaking with the hippie past, namely Volunteers. Meanwhile, the It’s a Beautiful Day began their psychedelic adventure with an album beyond all time and definition. So much so that the "revolution" was represented by David LaFlamme's violin, more unique than rare in the psychedelic American scene and beyond.

The beginning of the album is simply marvelous, with one of the most sunny songs, musically speaking – somewhat less so in its melancholic lyrics – of the album (White Bird), with an exotic flavor, enriched by Linda LaFlamme's warm and enveloping organ (wife of the singer/violinist). The album thrives on the splendid voice of Pattie Santos, which counterpoints David's singing, enriching it and providing what it cannot possess on its own. The twilight and dreamy arrangements of A Hot Summer Day dissolve into the strength and acidity of the instrumental Wasted Union Blues, then returning to the placid dream of Girl With No Eyes, adorned with a delicate and splendid text with passages of pure poetry (Doesn't everybody know, everybody know, /love takes a lifetime. /And doesn't everybody know, everybody know, /love is the eye sight, /it's the eye sight of a lifetime) and with graceful harpsichord openings that make it a pure and ecstatic gem. The album proceeds toward the nocturne of Bulgaria and the brilliant temporal hook to the Grateful Dead, represented by the psychedelic jam Time Is, a divine and refined conclusion to an album that is something more than what it aesthetically represents.